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I 


• KNOWLEDGE IS POWER: 

A VIEW OF THE 

PRODUCTIVE FORCES OF MODERN SOCIETY 

AND THE RESULTS OF 

LABOR, CAPITAL AND SKILL. 


BY 

CHARLES KNIGHT. 

Titoisci) mill toitjj 

BY 

DAVID A. WELLS, A. M., 

EDITOR “ANNUAL SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY,” “YEAR-BOOK OF AGRICULTURE,” “ FAMILIAR 

SCIENCE,” ETC. ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED WITH NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS. 


“ The empire of man over material things has for its only foundation the sciences and the 

arts. — Bacon. ’ > ’ > 

» * 


BOSTON: 

GOULD AND LINCOLN, 

59 WASHINGTON STREET. 

NE*W YORK: SHELDON, BLAKEMAN & CO., 
CINCINNATI: GEORGE S. BLANCHARD. 

1 8 5 6 . 


GIFT 

MRS DR A n a ' 

Jbui 


K J 'FFMAN 
24 1955 


Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by 
GOULD AND LINCOLN, 

In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



STEREOTYPED BY 

THOMAS B. SMITH, 
82 & 84 Beekmau St., N. Y. 


EDITOR’S PREFACE. 


This work, entitled “ Knowledge is Power,” was first published in 
England early in the year 1855. The author, Mr. Charles Knight, is 
well known to the reading public of Great Britain and the United 
States, as an eminent London publisher, and as the editor and author 
of the “Penny Magazine,” “Penny Cyclopedia,” “The Results of 
Machinery,” and other popular works. 

The design of “ Knowledge is Power” is to set forth in a concise 
and familiar manner the nature and variety of the various productive 
forces of modem society, together with the results which have been 
attained to by the union of labor, capital and skill; the whole illus¬ 
trated by numerous examples and statistics, derived in great part 
from the history of the civilization and progress of the Anglo-Saxon 
races, and from their present condition. The author, in the prepara¬ 
tion of the work, having had solely in view the instmction and re¬ 
quirements of the English public, introduced many illustrative 
examples, statistics and engravings, which were both inapplicable 
and foreign to the actual condition and past history of industrial 
progress in the United States. To render, therefore, the book more 
useful, and in all respects intelligible to the American reader, a care¬ 
ful revision and re-editing were considered necessary. 

In the execution of this requirement the Editor has strictly fol¬ 
lowed the original plan of the author, as the principles laid down, 



iv 


editor’s preface. 


and the subjects treated of, are general in their nature, and confined 
to no section of any country, or to any particular nation. Some 
entirely new chapters have been added, others re-written in great 
part, and much industrial, historical, and statistical matter, which 
was exclusively English and local, has been omitted, and replaced 
with information of a like character drawn from American sources. 
The majority of the original engravings with which the book was 
illustrated, have, for a similar reason, been replaced by others. 

If it be objected to by any, that the work, notwithstanding its re¬ 
vision, is too English in character, it may be urged in reply, that as 
respects the past, British history, previous to the eighteenth century, 
is the common heritage of both the Englishman and the American, 
and that their ancestors were also our ancestors; for the present, we 
need not remind the reader that the industrial pursuits of both coun¬ 
tries are so closely associated and united, that whatever pertains to 
the interests of one, also affects in a greater or less degree the inter¬ 
ests of the other. 

11 Without attempting,” says Mr. Knight, “ to give to the volume 
the formal shape of a treatise on political economy, it is the wish of 
the author to convey the broad parts of his subject in a somewhat 
desultory manner, but one which is not altogether devoid of logical 
arrangement. He desires especially to be understood by the young ; 
for upon their right appreciation of the principles which govern so¬ 
ciety will depend much of the security and happiness of our own and 
the coming time. The danger of our present period of transition is, 
that theory should expect too much, and that practice should do too 
little in the amelioration of the condition of the people.” 


Nkw York, April, 1856. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Rousseau’s opinion on observing.—familiarity with the de¬ 
tails OF A PURSUIT OFTEN OCCASIONS INDIFFERENCE CONCERN¬ 
ING ITS PRINCIPLES.—THE CONDITION OF NATIONS AND INDIVID¬ 
UALS NOT DEPENDENT ON ACCIDENT.—MAN AMENABLE TO LAW.— 
POLITICAL ECONOMY.—WANTS OF MAN.—HIS NATURAL POWERS.— 
WEALTH, DEFINITION OF.—OBJECT OF THE PRESENT WORK.—OPPO¬ 
SITION TO LABOR-SAVING MACHINERY.—WHITWORTH’S REPORT.— 
FULTON’S STEAMBOAT.—ERICSSON.—WHAT IS SCIENCE.—CAPITAL.— 
MONEY.—EXCHANGES.—DIVISION OF LABOR.—GENERAL SUMMARY. 13 

CHAPTER II. 

FEEBLE RESOURCES OF CIVILIZED MAN IN A DESERT.—ROSS COX, 
PETER THE WILD BOY, AND THE SAVAGE OF AVEYRON.—A MOS¬ 
QUITO INDIAN ON JUAN FERNANDEZ.—CONDITIONS NECESSARY FOR 
THE PRODUCTION OF UTILITY. 26 

CHAPTER III. 

SOCIETY A SYSTEM OF EXCHANGES.—SECURITY OF INDIVIDUAL PROP¬ 
ERTY THE PRINCIPLE OF EXCHANGE.—ALEXANDER SELKIRK AND 
ROBINSON CRUSOE.—IMPERFECT APPROPRIATION AND UNPROFITA¬ 
BLE LABOR. 36 


CHAPTER IV. 

ADVENTURES OF JOHN TANNER.—HABITS OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS.— 
THEIR SUFFERINGS FROM FAMINE, AND FROM THE ABSENCE AMONG 





VI 


CONTENTS 


, PAGE 

THEM OF THE PRINCIPLE OF DIVISION OF LABOR.—EVILS OF IRREG¬ 
ULAR LABOR.—RESPECT TO PROPERTY.—THEIR PRESENT IMPROVED 

AC* 

CONDITION.—HUDSON’S BAY INDIANS. 

CHAPTER V. 

THE PRODIGAL.—ADVANTAGES OF THE POOREST MAN IN CIVILIZED 
LIFE OVER THE RICHEST SAVAGE.—SAVINGS-BANKS, DEPOSITS, AND 
INTEREST.—PROGRESS OF ACCUMULATION.—INSECURITY OF CAPI¬ 
TAL, ITS CAUSES AND RESULTS.—CONDITION OF TURKEY. EXPUL- __ 
SION OF THE MOORS AND JEWS FROM SPAIN.— REVOCATION OF THE 
EDICT OF NANTES.—PROPERTY, ITS CONSTITUENTS.—ACCUMULATION 
OF CAPITAL. ^1 

CHAPTER VI. 

COMMON INTERESTS OF CAPITAL AND LABOR.—LABOR DIRECTED BY AC¬ 
CUMULATION.—CAPITAL ENHANCED BY LABOR.—BALANCE OF RIGHT 
AND DUTIES.—RELATION OF DEMAND AND SUPPLY.—MONEY EX¬ 
CHANGES.. t6 

CHAPTER VII. 

MACHINERY OF EXCHANGE.—EXCHANGE LIMITED IN NEW COUNTRIES. 

—CHANGE IN PLACE.—CHANGE IN FORM.—CHANGE IN OWNERSHIP. 
—ESSENTIAL QUALITIES OF A CIRCULATING MEDIUM.—ADVANTAGES 
POSSESSED BY GOLD AND SILVER FOR USE AS MONEY.—EXCHANGE 
IN KIND.—MONEY AN INSTRUMENT FOR SAVING LABOR.—EFFECTS 
OF AN ABUNDANT SUPPLY OF GOLD AND SILVER.—SIBERIA, PERU, 

AND CALIFORNIA POOR.—ENGLAND RICH.—TRUE OFFICES OF MONEY. St 

CHAPTER VIII. 

i 

IMPORTANCE OF CAPITAL TO THE PROFITABLE EMPLOYMENT OF LABOR. 

—CONTRAST BETWEEN THE PRODIGAL AND THE PRUDENT MAN: THE 
DUKES OF BUCKINGHAM AND BRIDGEWATER.—MAKING GOOD FOR 
TRADE.—UNPROFITABLE CONSUMPTION.—WAR AGAINST CAPITAL IN 
THE MIDDLE AGES.—EVILS OF CORPORATE PRIVILEGES.—CONDITION 
OF THE PEOPLE UNDER HENRY VIH. 105 






CONTENTS. yii 

CHAPTER IX. 

PAGE 

EIGHTS OF LABOR.—EFFECTS OF SLAVERY OH PRODUCTION.—CONDI¬ 
TION OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS.—PROGRESS OF FREEDOM IN ENGLAND. 

—LAWS REGULATING LABOR.—WAGES AND PRICES.—POOR-LAW.. . . 119 

CHAPTER X. 

POSSESSIONS OF THE DIFFERENT CLASSES IN ENGLAND.—CONDITION OF 
COLCHESTER IN 1301. —TOOLS, STOCK IN TRADE, FURNITURE, ETC.— 
SUPPLY OF FOOD.—COMPARATIVE DURATION OF HUMAN LIFE.— 
WANT OF FACILITIES FOR COMMERCE.—PLENTY AND CIVILIZATION 
NOT PRODUCTIVE OF EFFEMINACY.—COLCHESTER IN THE PRESENT 
DAY. 134 


CHAPTER XI. 

CERTAINTY THE STIMULUS TO INDUSTRY.—EFFECTS OF INSECURITY.— 
INSTANCES OF UNPROFITABLE LABOR.—FORMER NOTIONS OF COM¬ 
MERCE.—ENGLAND AND HER AMERICAN COLONIES.—NATIONAL AND 
CLASS PREJUDICES, AND THEIR REMEDY.. 151 

* CHAPTER XII. 

EMPLOYMENT OF MACHINERY IN MANUFACTURES AND AGRICULTURE.— 
ERRONEOUS NOTIONS FORMERLY PREVALENT ON THIS SUBJECT.—ITS 
ADVANTAGES TO THE LARORER.—SPADE HUSBANDRY.—THE PRINCI¬ 
PLE OF MACHINERY.—MACHINES AND TOOLS-—CHANGE IN THE CON¬ 
DITION OF ENGLAND CONSEQUENT ON THE INTRODUCTION OF MA¬ 
CHINERY.—MODERN NEW ZEALANDERS AND ANCIENT GREEKS.— 
HAND-MILLS AND WATER-MILLS. 163 


CHAPTER XIII. 

PRESENT AND FORMER CONDITION OF ENGLAND.—PROGRESS OF CULTI¬ 
VATION.—EVIL INFLUENCE OF FEUDALISM.—STATE OF AGRICULTURE 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.—MODERN IMPROVEMENTS.—CULTIVA- 


♦ 





vm 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

TION.—AVERAGE CONSUMPTION OF WHEAT IN GREAT BRITAIN.—IM¬ 
PLEMENTS OF AGRICULTURE NOW IN USE.—NUMBER OF AGRICUL¬ 
TURALISTS IN GREAT BRITAIN.186 

CHAPTER XIV. 

PRODUCTION OF A KNIFE.—MANUFACTURE OF IRON.—RAISING COAL. 

—THE HOT-BLAST.—IRON BRIDGES.—ROLLING BAR-IRON.—MAKING 
STEEL.—SHEFFIELD MANUFACTURES.—MINING IN GREAT BRITAIN.— 
NUMBERS ENGAGED IN MINES AND METAL MANUFACTURES. 203 

CHAPTER XV. 

CONVEYANCE AND EXTENDED USE OF COAL.—CONSUMPTION AT VARI¬ 
OUS PERIODS.—CONDITION OF THE ROADS IN THE SEVENTEENTH AND 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES.—ADVANTAGES OF GOOD ROADS.—WANT OF 
ROADS IN AUSTRALIA.—CANALS.—RAILWAY OF 1680. —RAILWAY 
STATISTICS.— POST-OFFICE STATISTICS.— INTRODUCTION OF STAGE¬ 
COACHES. 222 


CHAPTER XVI. 

HOUSES.—THE PYRAMIDS.—MECHANICAL POWER.—CARPENTERS’ TOOLS. 
AMERICAN MACHINERY FOR BUILDING.—BRICKS.—SLATE.—HOUSE¬ 
HOLD FITTINGS AND FURNITURE.—PAPER-HANGINGS.—CARPETS.— 

GLASS—POTTERY—PALISSY AND WEDGEWOOD_COMMERCIAL VALUE 

OF TASTE. 242 


CHAPTER XVII. 

DWELLINGS OF THE PEOPLE.—OBERLIN.—THE HIGHLANDER’S CANDLE¬ 
STICKS.—SUPPLY OF WATER.—LONDON WATER-WORKS.— STREET¬ 
LIGHTS.—SEWERS. 268 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

EARLY INTERCOURSE WITH FOREIGN NATIONS.—PROGRESS OF THE COT¬ 
TON MANUFACTURE.— HAND-SPINNING.— ARKWRIGHT.— CROMPTON, 







CONTENTS 


IX 


PAGE 

WHITNEY, AND THE COTTON-GIN.—PROGRESS OF THE COTTON MANU¬ 
FACTURE IN AMERICA.—ESPECIAL BENEFITS OF MACHINERY IN THIS 
MANUFACTURE. 283 

CHAPTER XIX. 

THE WOOLEN MANUFACTURE.—DIVISIONS OF EMPLOYMENT.—EARLY HIS¬ 
TORY.—PROHIBITORY LAWS.—THE JACQUARD LOOM.—MIDDLE-AGE 
LEGISLATION.—SUMPTUARY LAWS.—THE SILK MANUFACTURE.—RIB¬ 
BON-WEAVING.—THE LINEN MANUFACTURE.—OLD WOOLEN RAGS.— 
CLOTH-PRINTING.—BLEACHING. 30*7 

CHAPTER XX. 

HOSIERY MANUFACTURE.—THE STOCKING-FRAME.—THE CIRCULAR HO¬ 
SIERY-MACHINE.—HATS.—GLOVES.—FANS.—LACE MANUFACTURE.— 
BOBBINET MACHINE.—PIN-MAKING.—NEEDLES.—BUTTONS.—TOYS.— 
MATCHES.—ENVELOPS. 334 

CHAPTER XXI. 

LABOR-SAVING CONTRIVANCES.—THE NICK IN TYPES.—CASTING SHOT. 

—CANDLE-DIPPING.-TIRING A WHEEL.—GLOBE-MAKING.—DOMESTIC 

AIDS TO LABOR.—AIDS TO MENTAL LABOR.—EFFECTS OF SEVERE 
BODILY LABOR ON HEALTH AND DURATION OF LIFE. 350 

CHAPTER XXII. 

INFLUENCES OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE DIRECTION OF LABOR AND CAPI¬ 
TAL.-MANUFACTURE OF SODA-ASH.—CONNECTION OF SOAP AND CIV¬ 
ILIZATION.—ASTRONOMY.—CHRONOMETER.—MARINER’S COMPASS.- 

SCIENTIFIC TRAVELERS.—NEW MATERIALS OF MANUFACTURES.—IN¬ 
DIA RUBBER.—GUTTA-PERCHA.—PALM-OIL.—GEOLOGY.—INVENTIONS 
THAT DIMINISH RISK.—SCIENCE RAISING UP NEW EMPLOYMENTS.— 
ELECTRICITY.—GALVANISM.—SUN-LIGHT.—MENTAL LABORERS.—EN¬ 
LIGHTENED PUBLIC SENTIMENT. 369 







X 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

PAGE 

INVENTION OF PRINTING.—EFFECTS OF THAT ART.—A DAILY NEWSPAPER. 

—PROVINCIAL NEWSPAPERS.—NEWS-WRITING OF FORMER PERIODS. 

—CHANGES IN THE CHARACTER OF NEWSPAPERS.—STEAM CONVEY¬ 
ANCE.—ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.-ORGANIZATION OF A NEWSPAPER 

OFFICE.— THE PRINTING-MACHINE.— THE PAPER-MACHINE.— BOOK¬ 
BINDING. 402 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

POWER OF SKILL.—CHEAP PRODUCTION.—POPULATION AND PRODUC¬ 
TION.—PARTIAL AND TEMPORARY EVILS.—INTELLIGENT LABOR.— 
DIVISION OF LABOR.—GENERAL KNOWLEDGE.—THE LOWELL OFFER¬ 
ING.—UNION OF FORCES. 420 

CHAPTER XXV. 

ACCUMULATION.—PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE CONSUMPTION.- 

USE OF CAPITAL.—CREDIT.—SECURITY OF PROPERTY.—PRODUCTION 
APPLIED TO THE SATISFACTION OF COMMON WANTS.—INCREASE OF 
COMFORTS.—RELATIONS OF CAPITALIST AND LABORER. 438 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

NATURAL LAWS OF WAGES.—STATE-LAWS REGULATING WAGES.—EN¬ 
ACTMENTS REGULATING CONSUMPTION.-THE LABOR-FUND AND THE 

WANT-FUND.—RATIO OF CAPITAL TO THE POPULATION.—STATE OF 

INDUSTRY AT THE END OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.-RISE OF 

MANUFACTURES.—WAGES AND PRICES.-TURNING OVER CAPITAL.. . 460 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

WHAT POLITICAL ECONOMY TEACHES.—SKILLED LABOR AND TRUSTED 
LABOR.—COMPETITION OF UNSKILLED LABOR.—COMPETITION OF UN- 
CAPITALED LABOR.—ITINERANT TRADERS.—THE CONTRAST OF OR¬ 
GANIZED INDUSTRY.—FACTORY-LABOR AND GARRET-LABOR.—COM¬ 
MUNISM.—PROPOSALS FOR STATE ORGANIZATION OF LABOR.—SOCIAL 
PUBLISHING ESTABLISHMENT.—PRACTICAL CO-OPERATION.—DUTIES 
OF THE EMPLOYED.—DUTIES OF EMPLOYERS.—CONCLUSION. 476 






itiat of Illustrations 


PAGE 

Savages Kindling a Fire. 33 

Daniel Defoe. 42 

Robinson Crusoe, (from a design by Stothaul). 44 

Trading with the Indians. 56 

Ancient Roman Money. 86 

The Hock Cart . Ill 

Dr. Adam Smith. 119 

Prisoners in the Stocks. 129 

Astor Library, Hew York City.140 

Reading the Bible in the Sixteenth Century. 141 

Ancient English Chair. 145 

Center of Gravity. 110 

Analysis of a Cable.180 

Old English Mill. 184 

Egyptian Plow. 188 

Wooden Plow. 189 

The Modern Plow. 194 

Cultivator. 196 

Horse Hay-rake. 19T 

A Thrashing Machine. 198 

Thrashing by Cattle. 199 

Modern Improved Harrow. 202 

SULPHURET OF IRON . 204 

Britannia Bridge. 212 

Cupids, from Albani. 220 

A Goblet.. 224 





























xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

Benjamin Franklin. 236 

Bridge and Road among the Andes.240 

Traveling in Lapland. 242 

Pyramids and Sphynx. 244 

Carpenters and their Tools, (from old German wood-cut) ... 249 

Egyptian Brickmaking. 250 

Scotch Carpet Loom. 257 

Potter’s Wheel of Modern Egypt. 265 

The Egyptian Shadoof. 272 

Water Carriers of Turkey. 278 

Microscopic Appearance of the Cotton Fiber. 284 . 

Warp and Weft.486 

Distaff. 287 

Interior of a Cotton Mill. 292 

Microscopic Appearance of Wool. 312 

Mechanism of Power-Loom. 318 

Jacquard Cards. 319 

Hanks of Silk. 323 

Egyptian Silk Reel. 323 

Microscopic Appearance of Silk. 324 

Microscopic Appearance of the Flax Fiber. 329 

Mud Machine. 364 

Lord Bacon. 369 

New York and Liverpool Steamer. 377 

Interior of Greenwich Observatory.378 

Appearance of the Gutta-Percha of Commerce. 385 

Benjamin Franklin. 389 

Sir Isaac Newton. 393 

Monument of Lord Bacon.402 

Ben Johnson.^ 

Hoe’s Cylinder Printing Press. 414 
































KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. 


CHAPTER I. 


rousseau’s opinion on observing.—familiarity with the details of a pursuit 

OFTEN OCCASIONS INDIFFERENCE CONCERNING ITS PRINCIPLES.—THE CONDITION 
OF NATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS NOT DEPENDENT ON ACCIDENT.—MAN AMENABLE 
TO LAW.—POLITICAL ECONOMY.—WANTS OF MAN.—HIS NATURAL POWERS.— 
WEALTH, DEFINITION OF.—OBJECT OF THE PRESENT WORK.—OPPOSITION TO 
LABOR-SAVING MACHINERY.—WHITWORTH’S REPORT.—FULTON’S STEAMBOAT.— 
ERICSSON.—WHAT IS SCIENCE.—CAPITAL.—MONEY.—EXCHANGES.—DIVISION OF 
LABOR.—GENERAL SUMMARY. 

It has been wisely said by an eminent French writer 
(Ronssean) who scattered sound and foolish opinions with 
a nearly equal hand, “ that it requires a great deal of phi¬ 
losophy to observe once what may be seen every day.” 
This remark is particularly applicable to those branches of 
knowledge which relate to, and are intimately connected 
with, the pursuits of every-day life—to the various occupa¬ 
tions and employments which have their origin in the wants 
of man, and are the means and agencies by which those 
wants are supplied and satisfied. 

Familiarity with the details of any subject or business 
does not necessarily presuppose or require an acquaintance 
with the principles upon which such subject or business is 
founded—nay, more—familiarity generally gives rise to in¬ 
difference. If a particular result is satisfactory to a pecu-. 





14 CONDITION NOT DEPENDENT ON CHANCE. 

niary degree, the sluggish mind is too apt to rest satisfied, 
without caring to inquire as to the cause by which the re¬ 
sult is produced, or whether it is capable of further im¬ 
provement. The gun-smith may accurately fashion, day by 
day, in continued routine, a particular portion of the mus¬ 
ket, without knowing or caring to know the reason why he 
is required to shape the metal to a particular form, or the 
relation which such form sustains to the whole. The gun¬ 
smith may be an excellent workman and a good citizen, but 
an unthinking, unreflecting mind renders him a machine— 
no better, and in some respects inferior to his fellow-ma¬ 
chine that, with muscles of iron and sinews of steel, fashions 
the rough block into the complicated and irregular gun- 
stock more accurately and more rapidly than the human 
machine could achieve the same labor. 

This indifference to causes and first principles, which w r e 
unhesitatingly condemn in the unreflecting mechanic, finds 
a parallel with most men in all the ordinary transactions 
and labors of life which we call business. The majority of 
civilized, and even educated men, are content Avith the fact 
that a certain amount of labor, properly directed, produces 
a certain gain, and that gain or its representative, money, 
will produce in exchange the luxuries and necessities of 
fife; beyond this few seek to inquire or to comprehend 
those laws and principles which underlie every transaction 
involving labor and exchange, production and consumption, 
and in accordance Avith Avhich alone industrial effort is able 
to produce its greatest profitable effect. It is no chance 
system that returns to the Hindoo artizan a penny and to 
the American laborer a dollar for their daily toil, that 
makes Mexico, Avith its mineral wealth, poor, and Hew Eng¬ 
land, Avith its granite and ice, rich, that bids the elements in 
one country become subservient to the wants of man, and 
in another to sport idly and run to waste—it is no acci- 


MAN AMENABLE TO LAWS. 


15 


dental caprice of nature that has given rise to these and 
other analogous differences in the condition of various indi¬ 
viduals and societies, but a right understanding and appre¬ 
ciation, or the ignorance and abuse of those rules and 
conditions which govern and control the application of 
human industry to the original materials that the Creator 
has. spread around us. 

Man, whether existing alone, as the sole tenant of an un¬ 
inhabited island, or in society, as a member of a body 
politic, is amenable to and under the guidance of certain 
laws, which nature has fixed as the conditions of his being. 
Nature and revelation assert that labor is necessary for sub¬ 
sistence. “ In the sweat of thy brow Shalt thou eat bread.” 
Instinct teaches both the savage and the civilized man that 
temperance and freedom from excess are essentials for the 
preservation of health, and frugality and industry essentials 
for accumulation • of wealth. In addition to natural laws 
governing the physical well-being of man, society—the as¬ 
sociation of individuals for mutual benefit—has created 
other laws, regulating the conditions under which the asso¬ 
ciation shall be maintained, and affixing prescribed rules, in 
accordance with which each member may, according to his 
position and ability, best satisfy his wants and improve his 
condition. That branch of science which presents to our 
consideration a systematic arrangement of the various laws 
and conditions which govern the relations of man, whether 
individual or social, to his wants and desires, we designate 
as Political Economy. 

Man, it has been maintained, has greater natural wants 
and fewer natural means than any other animal. That his 
wants are greater, even in the lowest and most degraded 
type of the species, than the wants of any quadruped—to 
say nothing of animals lower in the scale of being—there 
can be no doubt. 


16 


WANTS OF MAN. 


u Man, in common with all animals, must sustain his body 
by nourishment, which is not offered to him freely, as to 
plants, but must be sought for with exertion. He must 
take and appropriate the food he finds; but, unlike most 
animals, he is obliged, even in the most savage state, to store 
up. He is bound to do this, because, although in part a 
carnivorous animal, he can not remain so long without food 
as the animals of prey; he requires a more regular supply; 
because his body, unaided by weapons or traps, is not 
adapted for obtaining for him animal food. His children 
also depend longer upon him for support than the young 
ones of any other animal upon their parent. The limbs of 
man, though nimble and of the most perfect organization, 
are without talons. His mouth does not protrude so that 
it might be used for attack; his body also is unprotected by 
either fur or feathers. He is obliged, therefore, to make 
arms and construct shelter; he must produce, even though 
he desires nothing more than to live.” 

But notwithstanding that the wants of man are greater 
and more numerous than those of most animals, and not¬ 
withstanding that his physical organization, unaided by 
weapons or tools, is ill-adapted for the appropriating of 
natural supplies, it can not be true that the natural means 
placed at his disposal by the Creator are feebler or less 
effective than those of the brutes. He alone is gifted with 
understanding and mental capacities, the exercise of which, 
in a variety of ways which no brute intelligence can attain 
to, is the greatest of all natural means—the one power, which 
enables him to subdue all things to his use. 

It is the almost unlimited extent of the wants of man in the 
social state, and the consequent multiplicity and complexity 
of his means—both his wants and means in a great degree 
proceeding from the range of his mental faculties—which 
have rendered it so difficult to observe and explain the laws 


SUPPLY AND DEMAND. 


17 


which govern the production, distribution, and consump¬ 
tion of those articles of utility, essential to the subsistence 
and comfort of the human race, which we call Wealth. It 
is not more than a century ago that even those who had “a 
great deal of philosophy” first began to apply themselves to 
observe “ what is seen every day” exercising, in the course 
of human industry, the greatest influence on the condition 
and character of individuals and nations. The properties of 
light were ascertained by Sir Isaac Newton long before men 
were agreed upon the circumstances which determined the 
production of a loaf of bread; and the return of a comet 
after an interval of seventy-six years was pretty accurately 
foretold by Dr. Halley when legislators were in almost com¬ 
plete ignorance of the principle which regularly brought as 
many cabbages to market as there were purchasers to de¬ 
mand them. 

Since those days immense efforts have been made to deter¬ 
mine the great circumstances of our social condition which 
have such unbounded influence on the welfare of mankind. 
But, unhappily for themselves and for others, many of every 
nation still remain in comparative darkness with regard 
even to the elementary truths which the labors of some of 
the most acute and benevolent inquirers that the world has 
produced have succeeded in establishing. Something of 
this defect may be attributed to the fact that subjects of 
this nature are considered difficult of comprehension. Even 
the best educated sometimes shrink from the examination 
of questions of political economy when presented in their 
scientific form. Charles Fox said that he could not under¬ 
stand Adam Smith. And yet Adam Smith’s “Wealth of 
Nations” is not generally considered to be a book above the 
capacity of ordinary intellects. Matters affecting the inter¬ 
ests of every human being, and involving a variety of facts 
having relation to the condition of mankind in every age 


18 


SUPPLY AND DEMAND. 


and country, are not necessarily, as has been supposed, dry 
and difficult to understand, and consequently only to he ap¬ 
proached by systematic students. On the contrary, the 
economic principles, which are so intimately connected with 
the well-being of every State, society, or individual, when 
considered apart from any particular theory or system, are 
eminently s im ple in their nature, admitting of extensive 
generalizations, and, at the same time, of a regular and sys¬ 
tematic classification. 

With this belief it is proposed in the following treatise to 
exhibit the nature of those principles by which Industry, as 
well as every other exchangeable property, must be gov¬ 
erned. To do this clearly, and at the same time thoroughly, 
it will he necessary to set forth and apply those universal 
laws, which regulate the exchange which the great hulk of 
the people are most interested in carrying forward rapidly, 
certainly, and uninterruptedly—the exchange of labor for 
capital. No exposition of the laws and principles of political 
economy can he made at the present day without a special 
reference to the development of that mighty power which 
within the last hundred years has become so absorbing and 
controlling—the Power of Science applied to the Arts, or, 
in other words, Knowledge. It is not too much to assert 
that henceforth, Labor must take its absolute direction from 
that power. It is now the great instrument of Capital. In 
time, it will be understood and acknowledged, universally • 
that applied science is under all circumstances the most ad¬ 
vantageous, and most profitable partner of all labor. That a 
universal assent, at least among all civilized communities, 
to a proposition so self-evident, so often inculcated by the 
wisest of statesmen and philosophers, and so forcibly illus¬ 
trated by reference to every industrial occupation, should 
be yet deemed prospective, may be by some regarded as 
unreasonable. It is, however, to be remembered that it 


WHITWORTH’S REPORT. 


19 


is only within a comparatively recent period ( 1830 ) that 
great national alarm and anxiety was experienced through¬ 
out Great Britain, on account of the rage and opposition 
manifested by the laboring classes against the introduction 
of mechanical improvements in agriculture. Large bodies 
of laborers, assembling together, broke to pieces the thrash¬ 
ing machines, and menaced the proprietors; and in many 
of the agricultural districts, the spirit of lawless violence 
prevailed to such an extent that military force was required 
for its coercion and restraint. Happily this spirit has, in a 
great measure, passed away. That it is not, however, en¬ 
tirely extinct in Great Britain, may be inferred from the Re¬ 
port of the Committee of the Great Exhibition “ On Agricul¬ 
tural Implements,” in which we are assured “that the labor¬ 
ers themselves begin to regard the tedious work of the flail 
as too irksome.” 

The subject is also indirectly alluded to by Mr. Whit¬ 
worth, in his able report to the British Government on 
the New York Industrial Exhibition, in which, after point¬ 
ing out the result of mechanical improvements and in¬ 
vention in the United States, he says, “ The results which 
have been obtained in the United States, by the applica¬ 
tion of machinery, wherever it has -been practicable, to 
manufactures, are rendered still more remarkable by the 
fact that combinations to resist its introduction there are 
unheard of. The workmen hail with satisfaction all me¬ 
chanical improvements, the importance and value of which, 
as releasing them from the drudgery of unskilled labor, 
they are enabled by education to understand and appre¬ 
ciate. With the comparatively superabundant supply of 
hands in this country, and therefore a proportionate diffi¬ 
culty in obtaining remunerative employment, the working 
classes have less sympathy with the progress of invention. 
Their condition is a less favorable one than that of their 


20 


FULTON. 


American brethren for forming a just and unprejudiced es¬ 
timate of the influence which the introduction of machinery 
is calculated to exercise on their state and prospects. I can 
not resist the conclusion, however, that the different views 
taken by our operatives and those of the United States 
upon this subject are determined by other and powerful 
causes besides those dependent on the supply of labor in 
the two countries. The principles which ought to regulate 
the relations between the employer and the employed seem 
to be thoroughly understood and appreciated in the United 
States; and while the law of limited liability affords the 
most ample facilities for the investment of capital in busi¬ 
ness, the intelligent and educated artisan is left equally free 
to earn all that he can, by making the best use of his hands, 
without let or hinderance by his fellows.” 

Notwithstanding this complimentary notice of the Amer¬ 
ican mechanic by Mr. Whitworth, it can not be denied that 
something of the same spirit which leads the British artizan 
to combine against the introduction of labor-saving machine¬ 
ry, prevails in this country, even in New England, the 
center of educational movements. It is the testimony of 
almost every inventor of an original machine or process in 
the United States, that one of the greatest difficulties he 
has had to encounter in the development of his discovery, 
has arisen from the secret opposition and indifference of the 
persons who are to use or apply it. 

“ When I was building my first steamboat in New York,” 
says Robert Fulton, “ the project was viewed by the public 
either with indifference or contempt, as a visionary scheme. 
My friends, indeed, were civil, but they were shy, they list¬ 
ened with patience to my explanations, but with a settled 
cast of incredulity on their countenances. As I had occa¬ 
sion to pass daily to and from the building-yard, while my 
boat was in progress, I have often loitered, unknown, near 


FULTON AND ERICSSON. 


21 


the idle groups of strangers, gathering in little circles, and 
heard various inquiries as to the object of the new vehicle. 
The language was uniformly that of scorn, or sneer, or ridi¬ 
cule. The loud laugh often rose at my expense; the dry 
jest; the wise calculations of losses and expenditures; the 
dull, but endless repetition of Fulton’s folly. Never did a 
single encouraging remark, a bright hope, a warm wish 
cross my path. Silence itself was but politeness, vailing its 
doubts, or hiding its reproaches.” 

The experience of Ericsson, in 1854, was not dissimilar 
from that of Fulton, in 1807. Although a difference in the 
tone of public sentiment was manifest, yet from the ridicule 
and attacks, not unfrequent, from individuals and a portion 
of the press, it might have been inferred that the introducer 
of the hot-air engine was a plotter against the welfare of the 
country, rather than an enthusiastic and ingenious inventor. 
All honor to the noble New York merchant,* whose money, 
credit, and influence, were so freely extended in the aid of 
an enterprise so promising, yet so unfortunate. America 
in losing a discovery gained a bright additional name upon 
her catalogue of the promoters and patrons of science 
and art. 

Numerous other examples might be adduced, illustrative 
of the hostility which occasionally manifests itself in the 
United States against the introduction of mechanical and 
other improvements—as the combination against the em¬ 
ployment of the sewing-machine, the opposition to the 
street-sweeping machine, and the steam fire-engine, or the 
destruction of the telegraph, through a supposed malignant 
meteorological influence of electricity and the wires. Hap¬ 
pily, however, these examples are but exceptions, and with 
the great majority of our countrymen the complete union 
of applied science with skilled labor is regarded as the tri- 
* John B. Kitching. 


22 


WHAT IS SCIENCE? 


umph of the productive forces of modern society. “ Where- 
ever,” says the report above quoted, “education and an 
unrestricted press are allowed full scope to exercise their 
united influence, progress and improvement are the certain 
results, and among the many benefits which arise from their 
joint co-operation may be ranked most prominently the 
value which they teach men to place upon intelligent con¬ 
trivance ; the readiness with which they cause new improve¬ 
ments to be received; and the impulse which they thus 
unavoidably give to that inventive spirit which is gradually 
emancipating man from the rude forms of labor, and making 
what were regarded as the luxuries of one age to be looked 
upon in the next as the ordinary and necessary conditions 
of human existence.” 

We have spoken of applied science as the power which 
in future is absolutely to direct and control labor, having 
already become the instrument of capital. But what is 
science? To many this word expresses merely an idea of 
dry formulae, technical descriptions, or abstruse experiment¬ 
ation. The subject itself is confounded with its occasional 
accessories. Science, however, is but the systematic ar¬ 
rangement and explanation of those truths and principles, 
so far as they have been discovered, which the Creator has 
established as the basis of every department of human 
knowledge. The application of science to labor is the di¬ 
rection of labor in conformity with an acquired knowledge 
of these truths and principles, and as every physical force, 
used for effecting change in the resources of the material 
world, must act efficiently and advantageously in exact pro¬ 
portion as it is directed intelligently, we recognize the 
force of the celebrated aphorism of Lord Bacon, w Knowl¬ 
edge is power.”* 

° This remark, so often quoted and so abundantly illustrated, may well 
claim a higher antiquity than the time of Lord Verulam. “Wisdom,” 


CAPITAL. 


23 


That industrial effort may be guided most surely and ad¬ 
vantageously in accomplishing its object, namely, that of pro¬ 
duction, the attainment of a certain amount of skill and knowl¬ 
edge is requisite; but before any production can take place, 
the existence of capital is essential. In short, without capital 
there can be no production, consequently no profitable labor, 
since we can not impart value to that which does not exist. 
Before the savage can exercise his knowledge in scooping 
out a canoe from the trunk of a tree, it is requisite for him 
not only to have acquired the trunk, but also the instrument 
for effecting his purpose. All capital, therefore, in the first 
instance, must necessarily have been derived from appro¬ 
priation. In the case of the first man, the earth with its 
undeveloped resources was his capital, his physical and in¬ 
tellectual faculties the means by which his capital could be 
made available and production effected. The difference 
between the present state of man and his original condition 
is simply this : that the properties and relations of natural 
objects and forces have been discovered and applied, while 
the intellectual powers of man himself have been cultivated 
to such an extent as to enable him to apply them to the di¬ 
rection of labor most efficiently and successfully. It is, 
therefore, obvious that all the wealth now existing owes its 
origin to the direct application of physical and intellectual 

says Solomon, “ is strength.” “ A wise man is strong.” “ If the iron he 
blunt and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength; 
but wisdom is profitable to direct.” “ Perhaps it is owing,” says Hamil¬ 
ton, “ to the imperfect sympathies which exist between theologians and 
philosophers, that such Scriptural sayings, and many others fraught with 
great principles, have received so little justice. And hence it has come 
to pass that many a maxim has got a fresh circulation, and has made a 
little fortune of renown for its author, which is after all a medal fresh 
minted from Bible money; the gold of Moses or Solomon, used up again 
with the image and superscription of Bacon, or Pascal, or Benjamin 
Franklin.” 


24 


MONEY-EXCHANGE. 


effort—that is, industry-—to natural resources and objects 
constituting capital. Hence capital and industry are all 
that is necessary for the creation of wealth. 

We have already defined wealth as consisting of those 
articles of utility which are essential to the subsistence and 
comfort of the human race. Money is especially the repre¬ 
sentative of wealth, since by the aid of money all articles 
capable of being transferred and exchanged from one to 
another may be most readily procured. “ Translated into 
its equivalent, money means food and clothing, and a salu¬ 
brious dwelling. It means instructive books and rational 
recreation. It means freedom from anxiety and leisure and 
capability for personal improvement and enjoyment. It 
means the education of one’s children and the power of 
doing good to others.” Money, however, in itself, is not 
wealth; but only so far as it is a medium for facilitating 
exchanges. When it ceases to effect this object, money 
becomes valueless. 

The industry of no one man, however, is capable of di¬ 
rectly satisfying all his wants and desires. Experience 
teaches us that by confining our labor to the production of 
one object, and afterward exchanging the result of such 
labor for the equivalent value of other employments, we 
can not only produce more, but more readily and effectually 
satisfy our desires, than if we endeavored by a varied em 
ployment to produce directly every thing necessary for oui 
comfort or happiness. Hence the necessity of a system of 
exchanges. Experience also teaches men, even in the rudest 
forms of society, that the productive effects of labor are 
greatly augmented by a union of separate forces and a class¬ 
ification of employments. Thus ten men will construct a 
hut more perfectly and more economically in one day, than 
one man can possibly effect the same object in ten days. 
The beneficial results of combined effort and skill are espe- 


DIVISION OF LABOR—GENERAL SUMMARY. 


25 


cially seen where the process admits of division, and each 
laborer performs that part for which his knowledge and 
skill renders him best adapted. Hence the necessity of 
classification and division of labor. 

Furthermore, as justice requires that the gain of all in¬ 
dustrial effort should be distributed to each participant in 
proportion to his ability to labor effectually, we have an¬ 
other important element of political economy, namely, that 
of distribution. The consideration of the consumption of 
value, as connected with subsistence and production, fur¬ 
nishes an additional topic in the discussion of the principles 
involved in the economy of labor. 

From what has been stated, therefore, it appears that 
man, in order to exist must produce, and that all produc¬ 
tion is the offspring of labor and capital. That labor and 
capital may be most advantageously employed, there must 
be knowledge, and a classification and division of labor. 
That productive labor may most readily and equitably sat¬ 
isfy the wants and desires of man, there must be exchanges, 
and a distribution of values. Upon the existence of these 
principles, and a proper administration of the laws which 
govern them, the prosperity and security of every society 
depends. That community only can attain the highest pros¬ 
perity, in which industry is free, capital secure, division and 
classification of labor intelligent, exchange untrammeled, 
and distribution of wealth equitable. 

The maxim of the Preacher—“The profit of the earth is 
for all”—contains the essence of all political economy. 

It is proposed in the succeeding chapters to explain some¬ 
what in detail, and illustrate by familiar examples, the rela¬ 
tion which the several principles we have touched upon sus¬ 
tain to each other, and to man, both in his individual and 
social capacities. 


2 


CHAPTER II. 


FEEBLE RESOURCES OF CIVILIZED MAN IN A DESERT.—ROSS COX, PETER THE WILD 
BOY, AND THE SAVAGE OF AYEYKON.—A MOSQUITO INDIAN ON JUAN FERNAN¬ 
DEZ.-CONDITIONS NECESSARY FOR THE PRODUCTION OF UTILITY. 


Let us suppose a man brought up in civilized life cast 
upon a desert land—without food, without clothes, without 
fire, without tools. W e see the human being in the very low¬ 
est state of helplessness. Most of the knowledge he had 
acquired would be worse than useless; for it would not be 
applicable in any way to his new position. Let the land 
upon which he is thrown produce spontaneous fruits—let it 
be free from ferocious animals—let the climate be most 
genial—still the man would be exceedingly powerless and 
wretched. The first condition of his lot, to enable him to 
maintain existence at all, would be that he should labor. 
He must labor to gather the berries from the trees—he 
must labor to obtain water from the rivulets—he must 
labor to form a garment of leaves, or of some equally acces¬ 
sible material, to shield his body from the sun—he must 
labor to render some cave or hollow tree a secure place of 
shelter from the dews of night. There would be no inter¬ 
mission of the labor necessary to provide a supply of food 
from hand to mouth, even in the season when wild fruits 
were abundant. If this labor, in the most favorable season, 
were interrupted for a single day, or at most for two or 
.three days, by sickness, he would in all probability perish. 


CIVILIZED MAN IN A DESERT—ROSS COX. 27 

But, when the autumn was past, and the wild fruits were 
gone, he must prolong existence as some savage tribes are 
reported to do—by raw fish and undressed roots. The 
labor of procuring these would be infinitely greater than 
that of climbing trees for fruit. To catch fish without nets, 
and scratch up roots with naked hands, is indeed painful 
toil. The hopelessness of this man’s condition would prin¬ 
cipally be the effect of one circumstance; he would possess 
no accumulation of former labor by which his present labor 
might be profitably directed. The power of labor would 
in his case be in its least productive state. He would partly 
justify the assertion that man has the feeblest natural means 
of any animal; because he would be utterly unpossessed of 
those means by which the reason of man has accumulated 
around every individual in the social state. 

We asked the reader to suppose a civilized man in the 
very lowest state in which the power of labor may be exer¬ 
cised, because there is no record of any civilized man being 
for any length of time in such a state. 

Ross Cox, a Hudson’s Bay trader, whose adventures were 
given to the world some twenty years ago, was in this state 
for a fortnight; and his sufferings may furnish some idea of 
the greater miseries of a continuance in such a powerless 
condition. Having fallen asleep in the woods of the north¬ 
west of America, which he had been traversing with a large 
party, he missed the traces of his companions. The weather 
being very hot, he had left nearly all his clothes with his 
horse when he rambled from his friends. He had nothing 
to defend himself against the wolves and serpents, but a 
stick;-he had nothing of which to make his bed but long 
grass and rushes; he had nothing to eat but roots and wild 
fruits. The man would doubtless have perished, unless he 
had met with some Indians, who knew better how to avail 
themselves of the spontaneous productions around them. 


28 


WILD MEN. 


But this is not an instance of the continuance of labor in 
the lowest state of its power. 

The few individuals, also, who have been found exposed 
in forests, such as Peter the Wild Boy, and the Savage of 
Aveyron—who were discovered, the one about a century 
ago, in Germany, the other about forty years since, in 
France—differed from the civilized man cast naked upon 
a desert shore in this particular—their wants were of the 
lowest nature. They were not raised above the desires of 
the most brutish animals. They applied those desires after 
the fashion of brutes. Peter was enticed from the woods 
by the sight of two apples, which the man who found him 
displayed. He did not like bread, but he eagerly peeled 
green sticks, and chewed the rind. He had, doubtless, sub¬ 
sisted in this way in the woods. He would not, at first, 
wear shoes, and delighted to throw the hat which was given 
him into the river. He, was brought to England, and lived 
many years with a farmer in the country. During the 
Scotch Rebellion, in 1745, he wandered into an adjacent 
district; and having been apprehended as a suspicious char¬ 
acter, was sent to prison. The jail was on fire ; and Peter 
was found in a corner, enjoying the warmth of the flames 
without any fear. . The Savage of Aveyron, in the same 
manner, had the lowest desires and the feeblest powers. He 
could use his hands, for instance, for no other purpose than 
to seize upon an object; and his sense of touch was so de¬ 
fective that he could not distinguish a raised surface, such 
as a carving, from a painting. This circumstance of the low 
physical and intellectual powers of these unfortunate per¬ 
sons prevents us exhibiting them as examples of the state 
which we asked the reader to suppose. 

Let us advance another step in our view of the power of 
labor. Let us take a man in one respect in the same condi¬ 
tion that we supposed—left upon a desert land, without any 


AN INDIAN ON JUAN FEENANDEZ. 


29 


direct social aid; but with some help to his labor by a small 
accumulation of former industry. We have instances on 
record of this next state. 

In the year 1681 a Mosquito Indian was left by accident 
on the island of Juan Fernandez, in the Pacific Ocean; the 
English ship in which he was a sailor having been chased 
off the coast by some hostile Spanish vessels. Captain 
Dampier describes this man’s condition in the following 
words: 

“This Indian lived here alone above three years; and 
although he was several times sought after by the Span¬ 
iards, who knew he was left on the island, yet they could 
never find him. He was in the woods hunting for goats, 
when Captain Watlin drew off his men, and the ship was 
under sail before he came back to shore. He had with him 
his gun, and a knife, with a small horn of powder, and a few 
shot; which being spent, he contrived a way, by notching 
his knife, to saw the barrel of his gun into small pieces, 
wherewith he made harpoons, lances, hooks, and a long 
knife; heating the pieces ^first in the fire, which he struck 
with his gun-flint, and a piece of the barrel of his gun, which 
he hardened, having learned to do that among the English. 
The hot pieces of iron he would hammer out and bend as 
he pleased with stones, and saw them with his jagged knife, 
or grind them to an edge by long labor, and harden them 
to a good temper as there was occasion. With such instru¬ 
ments as he made in that manner, he got such provisions as 
the island afforded, either goats or fish. He told us that at 
first he was forced to eat seal, which is very ordinary meat, 
before he had made hooks; but afterward he never killed 
any seals but to make lines, cutting their skins into thongs. 
He had a little house, or hut, half a mile from the sea, which 
was lined with goat’s skin ; his couch, or platform of sticks, 
lying along about two feet distance from the ground, was 


30 


AN INDIAN ON JTJAN FERNANDEZ. 


spread with the same, and was all his bedding. He had no 
clothes left, having worn out those he brought from Wat- 
lin’s ship, but only a skin about his waist. He saw our ship 
the day before we came to an anchor, and did believe we 
were English; and therefore killed three goats in the morn¬ 
ing, before he came to an anchor, and dressed them with 
cabbage, to treat us when we came ashore.” 

Here, indeed, is a material alteration in the wealth of a 
man left on an uninhabited island. He had a regular sup¬ 
ply of goats and fish; he had the means of cooking this 
food; he had a house lined with goats’ skins, and bedding 
of the same ; his body was clothed with skins; he had pro¬ 
visions in abundance to offer, properly cooked, when his old 
companions came to him after three years’ absence. What 
gave him this power to labor profitably ?—to maintain ex¬ 
istence in tolerable comfort ? Simply, the gun, the knife, 
and the flint, which he accidentally had with him when the 
ship sailed away. The flint and the bit of steel which he 
hardened out of the gun-barrel gave him the means of pro¬ 
curing fire; the gun became the material for making har¬ 
poons, lances, and hooks, with which he could obtain fish 
and flesh. Till he had these tools, he was compelled to eat 
seal’s flesh. The instant he possessed the tools he could 
make a selection of what was most agreeable to his taste. 
It is almost impossible to imagine a human being with less 
accumulation about him. His small stock of powder and 
shot was soon spent, and he had only an iron gun-barrel and 
a knife left, with the means of changing the form of the gun- 
barrel by fire. Yet this single accumulation enabled him to 
direct his labor, as all labor is directed, even in its highest 
employment, to the change of form and change of place of 
the natural supplies by which he was surrounded. He cre¬ 
ated nothing; he only gave his natural supplies a value by 
his labor. Until he labored, the things about him had no 


PRODUCTION OF UTILITY. 


31 


value, as far as he was concerned; when he did obtain them 
by labor, they instantly acquired a value. He brought the 
wild goat from the mountain to his hut in the valley—he 
changed its place; he converted its flesh into cooked food, 
and its skin into a lining for his bed—he changed its form. 
Change of form and change of place are the beginning and 
end of all human labor ; and the Mosquito Indian only em¬ 
ployed the same principle for the supply of his wants which 
directs the labor of all the producers of civilized life into the 
channels of manufactures or commerce. 

But the Mosquito Indian, far removed as his situation was 
above the condition of the man without any accumulation 
of former labor—that is, of the man without any capital 
about him—was only in the second stage in which the power 
of labor can be exercised , and in which it is comparatively 
still weak and powerless. He labored—he labored with ac¬ 
cumulation—but he labored without that other power which 
gives the last and highest direction to profitable labor. 

Let us state all the conditions necessary for the production 
of Utility, or of what is essential to the support, comfort, and 
pleasure of human life: 

1. That there shall be labor. 

The man thrown upon a desert island without accumu¬ 
lation—the half-idiot boy who wandered into the German 
forests at so early an age that he forgot all the usages 
of mankind—were each compelled to labor, and to labor 
unceasingly, to maintain existence. Even with an un¬ 
bounded command of the spontaneous productions of na¬ 
ture, this condition is absolute. It applies to the inferior 
animals as well as to man. The bee wanders from flower 
to flower, but it is to labor for the honey. The sloth 
hangs upon the branches of a tree, but he labors till he 
has devoured all the leaves, and then climbs another tree. 
The condition of the support of animation is labor; and 


32 


CONDITIONS NECESSARY EOR 


if the labor of all animals were miraculously suspended 
for a season, very short as compared with the duration of 
individual life, the reign of animated nature upon this globe 
would be at an end.* 

The second condition in the production of utility is— 

2. That there shall he accumulation of former labor , or 
capital . 

Without accumulation, as we have seen, the condition 
of man is the lowest in the scale of animal existence. The 
reason is obvious. Man requires some accumulation to aid 
his natural powers of laboring; for he is not provided 
with instruments of labor to any thing like the perfection in 
which they exist among the inferior animals. He wants the 
gnawing teeth, the tearing claws, the sharp bills, the solid 
mandibles that enable quadrupeds, and birds, and insects, to 
secure their food, and to provide shelter in so many ingeni¬ 
ous ways, each leading us to admire and reverence the di¬ 
recting Providence which presides over such manifold con¬ 
trivances. He must, therefore, to work profitably, accumu¬ 
late instruments of work. But he must do more, even in 
the unsocial state, where he is at perfect liberty to direct 
his industry as he pleases, uncontrolled by the rights of 
other men. He must accumulate stores of covering and of 
shelter. He must have a hut and a bed of skins, which are 
all accumulations, or capital. He must, further, have a 
stock of food, which stock, being the most essential for 
human wants, is called provisions , or things provided. He 
would require this provision against the accidents which 

° Many curious instances have been noticed by naturalists illustrative 
of the instinct which directs various animals to proportion the amount 
and nature of their labor to the exigences of particular cases. Bees 
transported from Europe to Bermuda omitted, after the experience of one 
season, to make the annual provision for the winter; and laying aside 
their habits of industry with the necessity of exertion, became idlers and 
sources of vexation to the inhabitants. 


THE PRODUCTION OF UTILITY. 


33 


may occur to his own health, and the obstacles of weather, 
which may prevent him from fishing or hunting. The low¬ 
est savages have some stores. Many of the inferior animals 
display an equal care to provide for the exigences of the 
future. But still, all such labor is extremely limited. 
When a man is occupied only in providing immediately for 
his own wants—doing every thing for himself, consuming 
nothing but what he produces himself—his labor must have 
a very narrow range. The supply of the lowest necessities 



SAVAGES KINDLING A FIRE. 


of our nature can only be attended to, and these must be 
very ill supplied. The Mosquito Indian had fish, and goats’ 
flesh, and a rude hut, and a girdle of skins; and his power 
of obtaining this wealth was insured to him by the absence 
of other individuals who would have been his competitors 
for what the island spontaneously produced. Had other 
Indians landed in numbers on the island, and had each set 
about procuring every thing for himself, as the active Mos¬ 
quito did, they would have soon approached the point of 


34 


CONDITIONS NECESSARY FOR 


starvation; and then each would have begun to plunder 
from the other, unless they had found out the principle that 
would have given them all plenty. There was wanted, then, 
another power to give the labor of the Indian a profitable 
direction, besides that of accumulation. It is a power which 
can only exist where man is social, as it is his nature to be; 
—and where the principles of civilization are in a certain 
degree developed. It is, indeed, the beginning and the end 
of all civilization. It is itself civilization, partial or com¬ 
plete. It is the last and the most important condition in 
the production of useful commodities. 

“ Wherever men do not accumulate property, either be¬ 
cause they actually can not do so, or will not do so, because 
they are yet too brutish, we find a very thin population. 
All the sustenance offered by a luxuriant forest well stocked 
with game, or by rivers and sea, suffices to support but a 
very scanty population. The Tchucktshi on the North¬ 
ern coast of Asia, the New-Zealanders, our Indians in 
the West, and the inhabitants of Burmah, are striking in¬ 
stances of the truth of this remark. Without accumulation 
all men must spend their whole time in the search of food, 
like the animals, and the pursuit of the most necessary arti¬ 
cles for protection; and no values can be spared for all 
those pursuits, which, in the end, increase comforts and 
happiness, indeed even food and raiment, yet not necessa¬ 
rily immediately so; such, for instance, as astronomy and 
mineralogy.” 

3. That there shall be exchanges. 

There can be no exchanges without accumulation—there 
can be no accumulation without labor. Exchange is that 
step beyond the constant labor and the partial accumula¬ 
tion of the lower animals, which makes man the lord of the 
world. 

Mere existence is not the object or the destiny of man. 


THE PRODUCTION OF UTILITY. 


35 


It is his prerogative alone of all animals to progress. But 
civilization is the first step of progress, and civilization can 
not exist without an increase and union of population. The 
first expedient resorted to in the attempts to civilize the. 
North American Indian, is to withdraw him from his iso¬ 
lated individuality as a wanderer, and make him a member 
of society, organized into a town or village. Increased 
population can not, however, take place without increased 
production, and this in its turn depends wholly upon in¬ 
creased accumulation and exchange of products. 


CHAPTER III. 


SOCIETY A SYSTEM OF EXCHANGES.—SECURITY OF INDIVIDUAL PROPERTY THE PRIN¬ 
CIPLE OF EXCHANGE.—ALEXANDER SELKIRK AND ROBINSON CRUSOE.—IMPERFECT 
APPROPRIATION AND UNPROFITABLE LABOR. 

Society, both in its rudest form and in its most refined 
and complicated relations, is nothing but a system of Ex¬ 
changes. An exchange is a transaction in which both the 
parties who make the exchange are benefited;—and, con¬ 
sequently, society is a state presenting an uninterrupted 
succession of advantages for all its members. Every time 
that we make a free exchange we have a greater desire for 
the thing which we receive than for the thing which we 
give ;—and the person with whom we make the exchange 
has a greater desire for that which we offer him than for 
that which he offers us. When one gives his labor for 
wages, it is because he has a higher estimation of the wages 
than of the profitless ease and freedom of remaining un¬ 
employed ;—and, on the contrary, the employer who pur¬ 
chases his labor feels that he shall be more benefited by the 
results of that labor than by retaining the capital which he 
exchanges for it. In a simple state of society, when one 
man exchanges a measure of wheat for the measure of wine 
which another man possesses, it is evident that the one has 
got a greater store of wheat than he desires to consume 
himself, and that the other, in the same way, has got a 
greater store of wine;—the one exchanges something to 
eat for something to drink, and the other something to 


SECURITY OF PROPERTY. 


37 


drink for something to eat. In a refined state of society, 
when money represents the value of the exchanges, the ex¬ 
change between the abundance beyond the wants of the 
possessor of one commodity and of another is just as real as 
the barter of wheat for wine. The only difference is, that 
the exchange is not so direct, although it is incomparably 
more rapid. But, however the system of exchange be car¬ 
ried on—whether the value of the things exchanged be de¬ 
termined by barter or by a price in money—all the exchang¬ 
ers are benefited, because all obtain what they want, through 
the store which they possess of what they do not want. 

It has been well said that “ Man might be defined to be 
an animal that makes exchanges.”* There are other ani¬ 
mals, indeed, such as bees and ants among insects, and 
beavers among quadrupeds, which to a certain extent are 
social; that is, they concur together in the execution of a 
common work for a common good: but as to their individ¬ 
ual possessions, each labors to obtain what it desires from 
sources accessible to all, or plunders the stores of others. 
Not one insect or quadruped, however wonderful may be 
its approaches to rationality, has the least idea of making a 
formal exchange with another. The modes by which the 
inferior animals communicate their thoughts are probably 
not sufficiently determinate to allow of any such agreement. 
The very foundation of that agreement is a complicated 
principle, which man alone can understand. It is the Secur¬ 
ity of individual Property. 

By property we understand that which we own, and the 
ownership of a thing presupposes an absolute and exclusive 
right over it, to use, or abuse it, to maintain it entirely for 
our own benefit, or to exchange it, or donate it to others. 
When the security of property is affected, exchanges are 
disturbed, and labor ceases to be remunerative, for all ex- 
* Dr. Whately’s Lectures on Political Economy. 


38 SECURITY OF PROPERTY-ALEXANDER SELKIRK. 

change proceeds on the supposition that the exchanger has 
an exclusive right to the value he offers for the products of 
others. The security of individual property being once 
established, and the right of the possessor to dispose of his 
own as he will being acknowledged, labor begins to work 
profitably, for it works with exchange. 

If the principle of appropriation were not acted upon at 
all, there could be no exchange, and consequently no pro¬ 
duction. The scanty bounty of nature might be scrambled 
for by a few miserable individuals—and the strongest would 
obtain the best share; but this insecurity would necessarily 
destroy all accumulation. Each would of course live from 
hand to mouth, when the means of living were constantly 
exposed to the violence of the more powerful. This is the" 
state of the lowest savages, and as it is an extreme state it 
is a rare one—no security, no exchange, no capital, no 
labor, no production. Let us apply the principle to an in¬ 
dividual case. 

The poet who has attempted to describe the feelings of a 
man suddenly cut off from human society, in “Verses sup¬ 
posed to be written by Alexander Selkirk, during his soli¬ 
tary abode in the island of Juan Fernandez,” represents him 
as saying, “I am monarch of all I survey.”* Alexander 
Selkirk was left upon the same island as the Mosquito In¬ 
dian; and his adventures there have formed the ground¬ 
work of the beautiful romance of “ Robinson Crusoe.” The 
meaning of the poet is, that the unsocial man had the same 
right over all the natural productive powers of the country 
in which he had taken up his abode, as we each have over 
light and air. He was alone; and therefore he exercised an 
absolute although a barren sovereignty, over the wild ani¬ 
mals by which he was surrounded—over the land and over 
the water. He was, in truth, the one proprietor—the one 
* Cowper’s Miscellaneous Poems. 


ALEXANDER SELKIRK. 


39 


capitalist, and the one laborer—of the whole island. His 
absolute property in the soil, and his perfect freedom of ac¬ 
tion, were both dependent upon one condition—that he 
should remain alone. If the Mosquito Indian, for instance, 
had remained in the island, Selkirk’s entire sovereignty, 
must have been instantly at an end. Some more definite 
principle of appropriation must have been established, which 
would have given to Selkirk, as well as to the Mosquito In¬ 
dian, the right to appropriate distinct parts of the island 
each to his particular use. Selkirk, for example, might have 
agreed to remain on the eastern coast, while the Indian 
might have established himself on the western; and then 
the fruits, the goats, and the fish of the eastern part would 
have been appropriated to Selkirk, as distinctly as the 
clothes, the musket, the iron pot, the can, the hatchet, the 
knife, the mathematical instruments, and the Bible which 
he brought on shore.* If the Indian’s territory had pro¬ 
duced something which Selkirk had not, and if Selkirk’s 
land had also something which the Indian’s had not, they 
might have become exchangers. They would have passed 
into that condition naturally enough; imperfectly perhaps, 
but still as easily as any barbarous people who do not culti¬ 
vate the earth, but exchange her spontaneous products. 

The poet goes on to make the solitary man say, “ My 
right there is none to dispute.” The condition of Alexan¬ 
der Selkirk was unquestionably one of absolute liberty. His 
rights were not measured by his duties. He had all rights 
and no duties. Many winters on the origin of society have 
held that man, upon entering into union with his fellow-men, 
and submitting, as a necessary consequence of this union, to 
the restraints of law and government, sacrifices a portion of 
his liberty, or natural power, for the security of that power 

* These circumstances are recorded in Captain Woodes Rogers’s Cruis¬ 
ing Voyage round the World, 1712. 


40 


ALEXANDER SELKIRK. 


which remains to him. No such agreement among man¬ 
kind could ever have possibly taken place; for man is by 
his nature, and without any agreement, a social being. He 
is a being whose rights are balanced by the uncontrollable 
force of their relation to the rights of others. The succor 
which the infant man requires from its parents, to an ex¬ 
tent, and for a duration, so much exceeding that required 
for the nurture of other creatures, is the natural beginning 
of the social state, established insensibly and by degrees. 
The liberty which the social man is thus compelled by the 
force of circumstances to renounce amounts only to a re¬ 
straint upon his brute power of doing injury to his fellow- 
men : and for this sacrifice, in itself the cause of the highest 
individual and therefore general good, he obtains that do¬ 
minion over every other being, and that control over the 
productive forces of nature, which alone can render him the 
monarch of all he surveys. The poor sailor, who for four 
years was cut off from human aid, and left alone to struggle 
for the means of supporting existence, was an exception, 
and a very rare one, to the condition of our species all 
over the world. His absolute rights placed him in the con¬ 
dition of uncontrolled feebleness; if he had become social, he 
would have put on the regulated strength of rights balanced 
by duties. 

Alexander Selkirk was originally left upon the unin¬ 
habited island of Juan Fernandez at his own urgent desire. 
He was unhappy on board his ship, in consequence of dis¬ 
putes with his captain; and he resolved to rush into a state 
which might probably have separated him forever from the 
rest of mankind. In the belief that he should be so separ¬ 
ated, he devoted all his labor and all his ingenuity to the 
satisfaction of his own wants alone. By continual exercise, 
he was enabled to run down the wild goat upon the mount¬ 
ains; and by persevering search, he knew where to find 


ALEXANDER SELKIRK. 


41 


the native roots that would render his goat’s flesh palatable. 
He never thought, however, of providing any store beyond 
the supply of his own personal necessities. He had no mo¬ 
tive for that thought; because there was no human being 
within his reach with whom he might exchange that store 
for other stores. The very instant, however, that the En¬ 
glish ships, which finally gave him back to society, touched 
upon his shores—before he communicated by speech with 
any of his fellow-men, or was discovered by them—he be¬ 
came social. He saw that he must be an exchanger. Be¬ 
fore the boat’s crew landed he had killed several goats, and 
prepared a meal for his expected guests. He knew that he 
possessed a commodity which they did not possess. He 
had fresh meat, while they had only salt provisions. Of 
course what he had to offer was acceptable to the sailors; 
and he received in exchange protection, and a place among 
them. He renounced his sovereignty, and became once 
more a subject. It was better for him, he thought, to be 
surrounded with the regulated power of civilization, than 
to wield at his own will the uncertain strength of solitary 
uncivilization. But, had he chosen to remain upon his 
island, as in after-years he regretted he had not done, 
although a solitary man he would not have been altogether 
cut off from the hopes and the duties of the social state. If 
he had chosen to remain after that visit from his fellow- 
men, he would have said to them, before they had left him 
once more alone, “ I have hunted for you my goats, I have 
dug for you my roots, I have shown you the fountains 
which issue out of my rocks; these are the resources of my 
dominion: give me in exchange for them a fresh supply of 
gunpowder and shot, some of your clothes, some of the 
means of repairing these clothes, some of your tools and im¬ 
plements of cookery, and more of your books to divert my 
solitary hours.” Having enjoyed the benefits which he had 


42 


ROBINSON CRUSOE. 


bestowed, they would, as just men, have paid the debt 
which they had incurred, and the exchange would have 
been completed. Immediately that they had quitted his 
shores, Selkirk would have looked at his resources with a 
new eye. His hut was rudely fashioned and wretchedly 
furnished. He had fashioned and furnished it as well as he 
could by his own labor, working upon his own materials. 
The visit which he had received from his fellow-men, after 
he had abandoned every hope of again looking upon their 
faces, would have led him to think that other ships would 
come, with whose crews he might make other exchanges— 
new clothes, new tools, new materials, received as the price 
of his own accumulations. To make the best of his circum¬ 
stances when that day should arrive, he must redouble his 
efforts to increase his stock of commodities—some for him¬ 
self, and some to exchange for other commodities, if the 
opportunity for exchange should ever come. He must, 

therefore, transplant his 
vegetables, so as to be 
within instant reach 
when they should be 
wanted. He must ren¬ 
der his goats domestic, 
instead of chasing them 
upon the hills. He must 
go forward from the 
hunting state, into the 
pastoral and agricul¬ 
tural. 

In Defoe’s story, Rob¬ 
inson Crusoe is repre- 
daniel defoe. sented as going into 

this pastoral and agri¬ 
cultural state. But he had more resources than Selkirk; 



ROBINSON CRUSOE. 


43 


and he at last obtained one resource which carried him 
back, however incompletely, into the social condition. He 
acquired a fellow-laborer. He made a boat by his unas¬ 
sisted labor; but he could not launch it. When Friday 
came, and was henceforth his faithful friend and willing 
servant, he could launch his boat. Crusoe ultimately left 
his island; for the boat had given him a greater com¬ 
mand over his circumstances. But had he continued there 
in companionship with Friday, there must have been such 
a compact as would have prevented either struggling for 
the property which had been created. The course of im¬ 
provement that we have imagined for Selkirk supposes that 
he should continue in his state of exclusive proprietor— 
that there should be none to dispute his right. If other 
ships had come to his shores—if they had trafficked with 
him from time to time—exchanged clothes and household 
conveniences, and implements of cultivation, for his goats’ 
flesh and roots—it is probable that other sailors would in 
time have desired to partake his plenty; that a colony 
would have been founded ; that the island would have be¬ 
come populous. It is perfectly clear that, whether for ex¬ 
change among themselves, or for exchange with others, the 
members of this colony could not have stirred a step in the 
cultivation of the land without appropriating its produce ; 
and they could not have appropriated its produce with¬ 
out appropriating the land itself. Cultivation of the land 
for a common stock would have conduced to the estab¬ 
lishment of precisely the same principle: they would still 
have been exchangers among themselves, and the partner¬ 
ship would not have lasted a day, unless each man’s share 
of what the partnership produced had been rendered per¬ 
fectly secure to him. Without security they could not 
have accumulated; without accumulations they could not 
have exchanged; without exchanges they could not have 


44 


IMPERFECT APPROPRIATION. 


carried forward their labors with any compensating pro¬ 
ductiveness. 

Imperfect appropriation—that is, an appropriation which 
respects personal wealth, such as the tools and conveniences 



of an individual, and even secures to him the fruits of the 
earth when he has gathered them, but which lias not 
reached the last step of a division of land—imperfect ap- 











UNPRODUCTIVE LABOR. 


45 


propriation such as this, raises up the same invincible obsta¬ 
cles to the production of utility; because, with this original 
defect, there must necessarily be unprofitable labor, small 
accumulation, limited exchange. Let us exemplify this by 
another individual case. 

We have seen, in the instances of the Mosquito Indian 
and of Selkirk, how little a solitary man can do for himself, 
although he may have the most unbounded command of 
natural supplies—although not an atom of those natural 
supplies, whether produced by the earth or the water, is 
appropriated by others—when, in fact, he is monarch of all 
he surveys. Let us trace the course of another man, ad¬ 
vanced in the ability to subdue all things to his use by asso¬ 
ciation with his fellow-men; but carrying on that associa¬ 
tion in the rude and unproductive relations of savage life; 
not desiring to “ replenish the earth” by cultivation, but 
seeking only to appropriate the means of existence which 
it has spontaneously produced; laboring, indeed, and ex¬ 
changing, but not laboring and exchanging in a way that 
will permit the accumulation of wealth, and therefore re¬ 
maining poor and miserable. We are not about to draw 
any fanciful picture, but merely to select some facts from a 
real narrative. 


CHAPTER IV. 


ADVENTURES OF JOHN TANNER.—HABITS OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS.—THEIR 
SUFFERINGS FROM FAMINE, AND FROM THE ABSENCE AMONG THEM OF THE 
PRINCIPLE OF DIVISION OF LABOR.—EVILS OF IRREGULAR LABOR.—RESPECT 
TO PROPERTY.—THEIR PRESENT IMPROVED CONDITION.—HUDSON’S BAY IN¬ 
DIANS. 

In the year 1828 there came to New York a white man 
named John Tanner, who had been thirty years a cap¬ 
tive among the Indians in the then North-west Territory. 
He was carried off by a band of these people when he was 
a little boy, from a settlement on the Ohio river, which was 
occupied by his father, who was a clergyman. The boy was 
brought up in all the rude habits of the Indians, and became 
inured to the abiding miseries and uncertain pleasures of 
their wandering life. He grew in time to be a most skillful 
huntsman, and carried on large dealings with the agents of 
the Hudson’s Bay Company, in the skins of beavers and 
other animals which he and his associates had shot or en¬ 
trapped. The history of this man was altogether so curious, 
that he was induced to furnish the materials for a complete 
narrative of his adventures; and, accordingly, a book, fully 
descriptive of them, was prepared for the press by Dr. 
Edwin James, and printed at New York, in 1830. It is of 
course not within the intent of our little work to furnish 
any regular abridgment of John Tanner’s story; but it is 
our wish to direct attention to some few particulars, which 
appear to us strikingly to illustrate some of the positions 
which we desire to enforce, by thus exhibiting their practi¬ 
cal operation. 


JOHN TANNER-AMERICAN INDIANS. 


47 


The country in which this man lived so many years was 
the immense territory belonging to the United States, 
which at that period was covered by boundless forests 
which the progress of civilization had not then cleared 



HUDSON’S BAY COMPANY TRADERS. 


away. In this region a number of scattered Indian tribes 
maintained a precarious existence by hunting the moose- 
deer and the buffalo for their supply of food, and by en¬ 
trapping the foxes and martens of the woods and the 
beavers of the lakes, whose skins they generally exchanged 
with the white traders for articles of urgent necessity, such 
as ammunition and guns, traps, axes, and woolen blankets; 
but too often for ardent spirits, equally the curse of savage 
and of civilized life. The contact of savage man with the 
outskirts of civilization perhaps afflicts him with the vices of 
both states. But the principle of exchange, imperfectly and 
irregularly as it operated among the Indians, furnished 
some excitement to their ingenuity and their industry. 
Habits of providence were thus to a certain degree created; 
it became necessary to accumulate some capital of the com¬ 
modities which could be rendered valuable by their own 







48 


AMERICAN INDIANS. 


labor, to exchange for commodities which their own labor, 
without exchange, was utterly unable to procure. The 
principle of exchange, too, being recognized among them 
in their dealings with foreigners, the security of property— 
without which, as we have shown, that principle can not 
exist at all—was one of the great rules of life among them¬ 
selves. But still these poor Indians, from the mode which 
they proposed to themselves for the attainment of property, 
which consisted only in securing what nature had produced, 
without directing the course of her productions, were very 
far removed from the regular attainment of those blessings 
which civilized society alone offers. We shall exemplify 
these statements by a few details. 

The extent of country over which these Indians roamed, 
was not less than five hundred thousand square miles—an 
area of the earth’s surface equal to that of England, Scot¬ 
land, Ireland, France, Belgium, Holland and Portugal com¬ 
bined. They had the unbounded command of all the natu¬ 
ral resources of this immense territory; and yet their entire 
numbers did not equal the present population of a single 
county in one of the New England States. It may be fairly 
said, that each Indian required the use of at least a thousand 
acres for his maintenance and support. The supplies of food 
were so scanty—a scantiness which would at once have 
ceased had there been any cultivation—that if a large num¬ 
ber of these Indians assembled together to co-operate in 
their hunting expeditions, they were very soon dispersed by 
the urgent desire of satisfying hunger. Tanner says, “ We 
all went to hunt beavers in concert. In hunts of this kind 
the proceeds are sometimes equally divided; but in this in¬ 
stance every man retained what he had killed. . In three 
days I collected as many skins as I could carry. But in 
these distant and hasty hunts little meat could be brought 
in; and the whole band was soon suffering with hunger. 


VICISSITUDES OF SAVAGE LIFE. 


49 


Many of the hunters, and I among others, for want of food 
became extremely weak, and unable to hunt far from home.” 
What an approach is this to the case of the lower animals; 
and how forcibly it reminds us of the passage in Job (c. iv., 
v. 11), “The fierce lion perisheth for lack of prey.”* In 
another place he says, “ I began to be dissatisfied at remain¬ 
ing with large bands of Indians, as it was usual for them, 
after having remained a short time in a place, to suffer from 
hunger.” These sufferings were not, in many cases, of short 
duration, or of trifling intensity. Tanner describes one in¬ 
stance of famine in the following words:—“The Indians 
gathered around, one after another, until we became a con¬ 
siderable band, and then we began to suffer from hunger. 
The weather was very severe, and, our suffering increased. 
A young woman was the first to die of hunger. Soon after 
this, a young man, her brother, was taken with that kind of 
delirium or madness which precedes death in such as die of 
starvation. In this condition he had left the lodge of his 
debilitated and desponding parents; and when, at a late 
hour in the evening, I returned from my hunt, they could 
not tell what had become of him. I left the camp about the 
middle of the night, and, following his track, I found him at 
some distance, lying dead in the snow.” 

This worst species of suffering equally existed at particu¬ 
lar periods, whether food was sought for by large or by 
small parties, by bands or by individuals. Tanner was 
traveling with the family of the woman who had adopted 
him. He says, “ We had now a short season of plenty; but 
soon became hungry again. It often happened that for two 
or three days we had nothing to eat; then a rabbit or two, 
or a bird, would afford us a prospect of protracting the suf¬ 
ferings of hunger a few days longer.” Again he says, 
“Having subsisted for some time almost entirely on the 

* The authorized version has old; the more correct translation is fierce 
3 


50 


WANT OF DIVISION OF LABOR. 


inner bark of trees, and particularly of a climbing vine 
found there, our strength was much reduced.” 

The misery which is thus so strikingly described pro¬ 
ceeded from the circumstance that the labor of the Indians 
did not take a profitable direction; and that this waste of 
labor (for unprofitable occupations of labor are the greatest 
of all wastes) arose from the one fact, that in certain partic¬ 
ulars these Indians labored without appropriation. They 
depended upon the chance productions of nature, without 
compelling her to produce; and they did not compel her to 
produce, because there was no appropriation of the soil, the 
most efficient natural instrument of production. If the In¬ 
dians had directed the productive powers of the earth to the 
growth of corn, instead of to the growth of foxes’ skins, they 
would have become rich. But they could not have reached 
this point without appropriation of the soil. They had 
learned the necessity of appropriating the products of the 
soil, when they had bestowed labor upon obtaining them; 
but the last step toward productiveness was not taken. 
The Indians, therefore, were poor; the white settlers who 
have taken this last step are rich. 

The imperfect appropriation which existed among the In¬ 
dians, preventing, as it did, the accumulation of capital, pre¬ 
vented the application of that skill and knowledge which is 
preserved and accumulated by the division of employment. 
Tanner describes a poor fellow who was wounded in the 
arm by the accidental discharge of a gun. As there was 
little surgical skill among the community, because no one 
could devote himself to the business of surgery, the Indian, 
as the only chance of saving his fife, resolved to cut off his 
own arm; “ and taking two knives, the edge of one of 
which he had hacked into a sort of saw, he with his right 
hand and arm cut off his left, and threw it from him as 
far as he could.” The labor which an individual must go 


WANT OF DIVISION OF LABOR. 


51 


through when the state of society is so rude that there is 
scarcely any division of employment, and consequently 
scarcely any exchanges, is exhibited in many passages of 
Tanner’s narrative. We select one. “I had no pukkavi, 
or mats for a lodge, and therefore had to build one of poles 
and long grass. I dressed more skins, made my own mocca¬ 
sins and leggins, and those for my children; cut wood and 
cooked for myself and family, made my snow-shoes, etc. 
All the attention and labor I had to bestow about home 
sometimes kept me from hunting, and I was occasionally 
distressed for want of provisions. I busied myself about 
my lodge in the night-time. When it was sufficiently light 
I would bring wood, and attend to other things without; 
at other times I was repairing my snow-shoes, or my own 
or my children’s clothes. For nearly all the winter I slept 
but a very small part of the night.” 

Tanner was thus obliged to do every thing for himself, 
and consequently to work at very great disadvantage, be¬ 
cause the principle of exchange was so imperfectly acted 
upon by the people among whom he lived. This principle 
of exchange was imperfectly acted upon, because the princi¬ 
ple of appropriation was imperfectly acted upon. The occu¬ 
pation of all, and of each, was to hunt game, to prepare 
skins, to sell them to the traders, to make sugar from the 
juice of maple-trees, to build huts, and to sew the skins 
which they dressed and the blankets which they brought 
into rude coverings for their bodies. Every one of them 
did all of these things for himself, and of course he did 
them very imperfectly. The people were not divided into 
hunters, and furriers, and dealers, and sugar-makers, and 
builders, and tailors. Every man was his own hunter, fur¬ 
rier, dealer, sugar-maker, builder, and tailor; and conse¬ 
quently, every man, like Tanner, was so occupied by many 
things, that want of food and want of rest were ordinary 


52 


IRREGULAR LABOR. 


sufferings. He describes a man who was so borne down 
and oppressed by those manifold wants, that, in utter de¬ 
spair of being able to surmount them, he would lie still till 
he was at the point of starvation, replying to those who 
tried to rouse him to kill game, that he was too poor and 
sick to set about it. By describing himself as poor, he 
meant to say that he was destitute of all the necessaries and 
comforts whose possession would encourage him to add to 
the store. He had little capital. The skill which he pos¬ 
sessed of hunting game gave him a certain command over 
the spontaneous productions of the forest; but, as his power 
of hunting depended upon chance supplies of game, his 
labor necessarily took so irregular a direction, and was 
therefore so unproductive, that he never accumulated suffi¬ 
cient for his support in times of sickness, or for his comfort¬ 
able support at any time. He became, therefore, despairing; 
and had that perfect apathy, that indifference to the future, 
which is the most pitiable evidence of extreme wretched¬ 
ness. This man felt his powerless situation more keenly 
than his companions; but with all savage tribes there is a 
want of steady and persevering exertion, proceeding from 
the same cause. Severe labor is succeeded by long fits of 
idleness, because their labor takes a chance direction. This 
is a universal case. Habits of idleness, of irregularity, of 
ferocity, are the characteristics of all those who maintain 
existence by the pursuit of the unappropriated productions 
of nature; while constant application, orderly arrangement 
of time, and civility to others, result from systematic in¬ 
dustry. When the support of life depends upon chance 
supplies, the reckless spirit of a gambler is sure to take 
possession of the whole man; and the misery which results 
from these chance supplies produces either dejection or 
ferocity. 

Mungo Park describes the wretched condition of the in- 


INDIAN APPROPRIATION. 


53 


habitants of countries in Africa where small particles of 
gold are found in the rivers. Their lives were spent in 
hunting for the gold to exchange for useful commodities, 
instead of raising the commodities themselves; and they 
were consequently poor and miserable, listless and un¬ 
steady. Their fitful industry had too much of chance 
mixed up with it to afford a certain and general profit. 
The accounts which of late years we have received from the 
gold-diggings of California and Australia exhibit the same 
suffering from the same cause. The natives of Cape de la 
Hogue, in Normandy, were the most wretched and fero¬ 
cious people in all France, because they depended principally 
for support on the wrecks that were frequent on their 
coasts. When there were no tempests, they made an easy 
transition from the character of wreckers to that of robbers. 
A benefactor of his species taught these unhappy people to 
collect the marine plants, which exist abundantly upon their 
shores, burn them, and dispose of the ashes for the manufac¬ 
ture of soda. They immediately became profitable laborers 
and exchangers; they obtained a property in the general 
intelligence of civilized life; the capital of society raised 
them from misery to wealth, from being destroyers to being 
producers. 

The Indians, as we thus see, were poor and wretched, 
because they had no appropriation beyond articles of domes¬ 
tic use; because they had no property in land, and conse¬ 
quently no cultivation. Yet even they were not insensible 
to the importance of the principle, for the preservation of 
the few advantages that belonged to their course of life. 
Tanner says, “ I have often known a hunter leave his traps 
for many days in the woods, without visiting them, or feel¬ 
ing any anxiety about their safety.” The Indians even 
carried the principle of appropriation almost to a division 
of land; for each tribe, and sometimes each individual, had 


54 


CONDITION OF AMERICAN INDIANS. 


an allotted hunting-ground—imperfectly appropriated, in¬ 
deed, by the first comer, and often contested with violence 
by other hunters, but still showing that they approached 
the limit which divides the savage from the civilized state, 
and that, if cultivation were introduced among them, there 
would be a division of land, as a matter of necessity. The 
security of individual property is the foundation of all social 
improvement. It is impossible to speak of the productive 
power of labor in the civilized state, without viewing it in 
connection with that great principle of society which con¬ 
siders all capital as appropriated. 

At the commencement of the present century, all the 
Indian tribes who were abiding in the territory of the 
United States east of the Mississippi, were in the condition 
which has been described by Tanner. The want of re¬ 
sources in the country of the Indians is always so manifest, 
that whenever the United States government through its 
agent or commissioners, assemble together any considerable 
number of Indians for the negotiation of treaties, or other 
purposes, it is absolutely necessary to provide for their sup¬ 
port and subsistence during the continuance of the council, 
by transporting provisions from the nearest civilized dis¬ 
trict. So improvident are these people, and so neglectful 
of the resources of the country they inhabit, that unless 
this course was adopted by the National Government, the 
council would be broken up, through impending starvation. 
The Indians formerly inhabiting the territory now occupied 
by the great North-western States, have now vanished from 
their old hunting-grounds. Where they so recently main¬ 
tained a precarious existence, there are populous cities, nav¬ 
igable rivers, roads, railways. The clink of the hammer is 
heard in the forge, and the rush of the stream from the 
mill-dam tells of agriculture and commerce. But even the 
Indians themselves have become laborers. A number of 


HUDSON’S BAY INDIANS. 


55 


the tribes have been removed to a large tract of country, 
west of the Mississippi, and have been raised into the dig¬ 
nity of cultivators. The Cherokees, the Creeks, and the 
Choctaws, with many smaller tribes, now breed cattle in¬ 
stead of hunting martens. They have houses in the place 
of huts; they have schools and churches. Instead of being 
extirpated by famine or the sword, they have been adopted 
into the great family of civilized man 

But this wise and humane arrangement of the United 
States has not wholly removed the Indians from the wide 
regions of North America. In the remote interior and in 
the Hudson’s Bay territories the life which Tanner described 
still goes forward. * The wants of civilized society—the de¬ 
sire to possess the earth—have transported the Indians from 
the banks of the Ohio to the lands watered by the Arkansas. 
The opposite principle has retained them on the shores of 
Hudson’s Bay. They are wanted there as hunters, and are 
not encouraged as cultivators. They are kept out of the 
pale of civilization, and are not received within it. The 
rude industry of the Hudson’s Bay Indians is stimulated by 
the luxury of Europe into an employ which would cease to 
exist if the people became civilized. If agriculture were 
introduced among them—if they were to grow corn and 
keep domestic animals—they would cease to be hunters of 
foxes and martens, because their wants would be much bet¬ 
ter supplied by other modes of labor, involving less suffer¬ 
ing and less uncertainty. As it is, the traders who want 
skins do not think of giving the Indians tools to work the 
ground and seeds to put in it, and cows and sheep to breed 
other cows and sheep. They avail themselves of the un¬ 
civilized state of these poor tribes, to render them the prin¬ 
cipal agents in the manufacture of fur, to. supply the luxu¬ 
ries of another hemisphere. But still the exchange which 
the hunters carry on with the European traders, imperfect 


56 


HUDSON’S BAY INDIANS. 



as it is in all cases, and unjust as it is in many, is better for 
th e Indians than no exchange; although we fear that ardent 
spirits take away from the Indians the greater number of 
the advantages which would otherwise remain with them 
as exchangers. If the Indians had no skins to give to Eu¬ 
rope, Europe would have no blankets and ammunition to 
give to them. They would obtain their food and clothing 
by the use of the bow alone. They would live entirely 
from hand to mouth. They would have no motive for ac¬ 
cumulation, because there would be no exchanges; and 
they would consequently be even poorer and more helpless 
than they are now as exchangers of skins. They are suffer¬ 
ing from the effects of small accumulations and imperfect 
exchange; but these are far better than no accumulation 
and no exchange. If the course of their industry were to 
be changed by perfect appropriation—if they were conse¬ 
quently to become cultivators and manufacturers, instead 

of wanderers in the 
woods to hunt for 
wild and noxious an¬ 
imals—they would, 
in the course of 
years, have abund¬ 
ance of profitable 
labor, because they 
would have abund¬ 
ance of capital. This 
is the better lot of 
many of the tribes 
’with whom the gov¬ 
ernment of the United States has made a far nobler 
treaty than Penn made with his Indians. As it is, their 
accumulations are so small, that they can not proceed 
with their own uncertain labor of hunting without an ad- 


TRADING WITH THE INDIANS. 




HUDSON’S BAY INDIANS. 


57 


vance of capital on the part of the traders; and thus, even 
in the rude tradings of these poor Indians, credit, that com¬ 
plicated instrument of commercial exchange, operates upon 
the direction of their labor. Of course credit would not 
exist at all 'without appropriation. Their rights of property 
are perfect as far as they go; but they are not carried far 
enough to direct their labor into channels which would 
insure sufficient production for the laborers. Their labor 
is unproductive because they have small accumulations;— 
their accumulations are small because they have imperfect 
exchange;—their exchange is imperfect because they have 
limited appropriation. We may illustrate this state of 
imperfect production by another passage from Tanner’s 
story: 

“ The Hudson’s Bay Company had now no post in that 
part of the country, and the Indians were soon made con¬ 
scious of the advantage which had formerly resulted to 
them from the competition between rival trading compa¬ 
nies. Mr. Wells, at the commencement of winter, called us 
all together, gave the Indians a ten-gallon keg of rum and 
some tobacco, telling them at the same time he would not 
credit one of them the value of a single needle. When they 
brought skins he would buy them, and give in exchange 
such articles as were necessary for their comfort and subsist¬ 
ence during the winter. I was not with the Indians when 
this talk was held. When it was reported to me, and a 
share of the presents offered me, I not only refused to ac¬ 
cept any thing, but reproached the Indians for their pusil¬ 
lanimity in submitting to such terms. They had been ac¬ 
customed for many years to receive credits in the fall; they 
were now entirely destitute not of clothing merely, but of 
ammunition, and many of them of guns and traps. How 
were they, without the accustomed aid from the traders, to 
subsist themselves and their families during the ensuing 
3 * 


58 


HUDSON’S BAY INDIANS. 


winter ? A few days afterward I went to Mr. Wells, and 
told liim that I was poor, with a large family to support by 
my own exertions; and that I must unavoidably suffer, and 
perhaps perish, unless he would give me such a credit as I 
had always in the fall been accustomed to receive. He 
would not listen to my representation, and told me roughly 
to be gone from his house. I then took eight silver beavers, 
such as are worn by the women as ornaments on their dress, 
and which I had purchased the year before at just twice the 
price that was commonly given for a capote ;* I laid them 
before him on the table, and asked him to give me a capote 
for them, or retain them as a pledge for the payment of the 
price of the garment, as soon as I could procure the peltries, f 
He took up the ornaments, threw them in my face, and told 
me never to come inside of his house again. The cold 
weather of the winter had not yet set in, and I went imme¬ 
diately to my hunting-ground, killed a number of moose, 
and set my wife to make the skins into such garments as 
were best adapted to the winter season, and which I now 
saw we should be compelled to substitute for the blankets 
and woolen clothes we had been accustomed to receive from 
the traders.” 

This incident at once shows us that the great blessing of 
the civilized state is its increase of the powers of production. 
Here we see the Indians, surrounded on all sides by wild 
animals whose skins might be made into garments, reduced 
to the extremity of distress because the traders refused to 
advance them blankets and other necessaries, to be used 
during the months when they were employed in catching 
the animals from which they might obtain the skins. It is 
easy to see that the Indians were a long way removed from 
the power of making blankets themselves. Before they 
could reach this point, their forests must have been con- 
* A sort of great-coat. f Skins. 


HUDSON’S BAY INDIANS. 


59 


verted into pasture-grounds; they must have raised flocks 
of sheep, and learned all the various complicated arts, and 
possessed all the ingenious machinery, for converting wool 
into cloth. By their exchange of furs for blankets, they 
obtained a share in the productiveness of civilization; 
they obtained comfortable clothing with much less labor 
than they could have made it out of the furs. If Tanner 
had not considered the capote which he desired to obtain 
from the traders, better, and less costly, than the garment 
of moose-skins, he would not have carried on any exchange 
of the two articles with the traders. The skins of martens 
and foxes were only valuable to the Indians, without ex¬ 
change, for the purpose of sewing together to make cover¬ 
ing. They had a different value in Europe as articles of 
luxury ; and therefore the Indians by exchange obtained a 
greater plenty of superior clothing than if they had used 
the skins themselves. But the very nature of the trade, 
depending upon chance supplies, rendered it impossible 
that they should accumulate. They had such pressing 
need of ammunition, traps, and blankets, that the produce 
of the labor of one hunting season was not more than suffi¬ 
cient to procure the commodities which they required to 
consume in the same season. But supposing the Indians 
could have bred foxes and martens and beavers, as we 
breed rabbits, for the supply of the European demand for 
fur, doubtless they would have then advanced many steps 
in the character of producers. The thing is perhaps impos¬ 
sible ; but were it possible, and were the Indians to have 
practiced it, they would immediately have become capital¬ 
ists, to an extent that would have soon rendered them inde¬ 
pendent of the credit of the traders. They must, however, 
have previously established a more perfect appropriation. 
Each must have inclosed his own hunting-ground ; and each 
must have raised some food for the maintenance of his own 


60 


HUDSON’S BAT INDIANS. 


stock of beavers, foxes, and martens. It would be easier, 
doubtless, to raise the food for themselves, and ultimately 
to exchange corn for clothing, instead of furs for clothing. 
When this happens—and it will happen sooner or later, 
unless the remnant of the hunting Indians are extirpated 
by their poverty, which proceeds from their imperfect pro¬ 
duction—Europe must go without the brilliant variety of 
skins which are procured at the cost of so much labor, ac¬ 
companied with so much wretchedness, because the labor is 
so unproductive to the laborers. When the ladies of Eu¬ 
rope and the United States are compelled to wear capes of 
rabbits’ fur instead of sables, and when the hair of the 
beaver ceases to be employed in Ihe manufacture of our 
hats, the wooded regions of Hudson’s Bay will have been 
cleared—the fur-bearing animals will have perished—corn 
will be growing in the forest and the marsh—the inhabit¬ 
ants will be building houses instead of trapping foxes;— 
there will be appropriation and capital, profitable labor and 
comfort. Three hundred thousand mink and marten-skins 
will no longer be sent from those shores to England in one 
year; but England may send to those shores woven cottons 
and worsteds, pottery and tools, in exchange for products 
whose cultivation will have exterminated the minks and 
martens. 


CHAPTER V. 


THE PRODIGAL.—ADVANTAGES OF THE POOREST MAN IN CIVILIZED LIFE OVER 
THE RICHEST SAVAGE.—SAVINGS-BANKS, DEPOSITS, AND INTEREST.—PROGRESS OF 
ACCUMULATION.—INSECURITY OF CAPITAL, ITS CAUSES AND RESULTS.—CONDITION 
OF TURKEY.—EXPULSION OF THE MOORS AND JEWS FROM SPAIN.—REVOCATION 
OF THE EDICT OF NANTES.—PROPERTY, ITS CONSTITUENTS.—ACCUMULATION OF 
CAPITAL. 

There is an account in Foster’s Essays of a man who, 
having by a short career of boundless extravagance dissi¬ 
pated every shilling of a large estate which he inherited 
from his fathers, obtained possession again of the whole 
property by a course which the writer well describes as a 
singular illustration of decision of character. The unfor¬ 
tunate prodigal, driven forth from the home of his early 
years by his own imprudence, and reduced to absolute want, 
wandered about for some time in a state of almost uncon¬ 
scious despair, meditating self-destruction, till he at last sat 
down upon a hill which overlooked the fertile fields that he 
once called his own. “ He remained,” says the narrative, 
“ fixed in thought a number of hours, at the end of which 
he sprang from the ground with a vehement exulting emo¬ 
tion. He had formed his resolution, which was, that all 
these estates should be his again; he had formed his plan, 
too, which he instantly began to execute.” We shall 
show, by and by, how this plan worked in detail; it will 
be sufficient, just now, to examine the principles upon 
which it was founded. He looked to no freak of fortune to 
throw into his lap by chance what he had cast from him by 


62 


THE PE0DIGAL. 


willfulness. He neither trusted to inherit those lands from 
their present possessor by his favor, nor to wring them 
from him by a course of law. He was not rash and foolish 
enough to dream of obtaining again by force those posses¬ 
sions which he had exchanged for vain superfluities. But he 
resolved to become once more their master by the opera¬ 
tion of the only principle which could give them to him in 
a civilized society. He resolved to obtain them again by 
the same agency through which he had lost them—by ex¬ 
change. But what had he to exchange ? His capital was 
gone, even to the uttermost farthing; he must labor to ob¬ 
tain new capital. With a courage worthy of imitation he 
resolved to accept the very first work that should be offered 
to him, and, however low the wages of that work, to spend 
only a part of those wages, leaving something for a store. 
The day that he made this resolution he carried it into ex¬ 
ecution. He found some service to be performed—irksome, 
doubtless, and in many eyes degrading. But he had a pur¬ 
pose which made every occupation appear honorable, as 
every occupation truly is that is productive of utility. In¬ 
cessant labor and scrupulous parsimony soon accumulated 
for him a capital; and the store, gathered together with 
such energy, was a rapidly increasing one. In no very 
great number of years the once destitute laborer was again 
a rich proprietor. He had earned again all that he had lost. 
The lands of his fathers were again his. He had accom¬ 
plished his plan. 

A man so circumstanced—one who possesses no capital, 
and is only master of his own natural powers—if suddenly 
thrown down from a condition of ease, must look upon the 
world, at the first view, with a deep apprehension. He sees 
every thing around him appropriated. He is in the very 
opposite condition of Alexander Selkirk, when he is made 
to exclaim “ I am monarch of all I survey.” Instead of 


ADVANTAGES OP CIVILIZATION. 63 

feeling that his “ right there is none to dispute,” he knows 
that every blade of corn that covers the fields, every animal 
that grazes in the pastures, is equally numbered as the prop¬ 
erty of some individual owner, and can only pass into bis 
possession by exchange. In the towns it is the same as 
in the country. The dealer in bread and in clothes—the 
victualer from whom he would ask a cup of beer and a 
night’s lodging—will give him nothing, although they will 
exchange every thing. He can not exist, except as a beg¬ 
gar, unless he puts himself in the condition to become an 
exchanger. 

But still, with all these apparent difficulties, his pros¬ 
pects of subsisting, and of subsisting comfortably, are far 
greater than in any other situation in which he must labor 
to live. As we have already seen, the condition of by far 
the greater number of the millions that constitute the ex¬ 
changers of civilized society is greatly superior to that of 
the few thousands who exist upon the precarious supplies 
of the unappropriated productions of nature in the savage 
life. Although an exchange must always be made—although 
in very few cases “ the fowl and the brute” offer themselves 
to the wayfaring man for his daily food—although no herbs 
worth the gathering can be found for the support of life in 
the few uncultivated parts of a highly cultivated country— 
the aggregate riches are so abundant, and the facilities 
which exist for exchanging capital for labor are therefore so 
manifold, that the poorest man in a state of civilization has 
a much greater certainty of supplying all his wants, and 
of supplying them with considerably more ease, than the 
richest man in a state of uncivilization. The principle upon 
which he has to rely is, that in a highly civilized country 
there is large production. There is large production be¬ 
cause there is profitable labor; there is profitable labor 
because there is large accumulation; there is large accumu- 


64 


SAYINGS BANKS. 


lation because there is unlimited exchange; there is un¬ 
limited exchange because there is universal appropriation. 
John Tanner was accounted a rich man by the Indians— 
doubtless because he was more industrious than the greater 
number of them ; but we have seen what privations he often 
suffered. He suffered privations because there was no cap¬ 
ital, no accumulation of the products of labor in the country 
in which he lived. Where such a store exists, the poorest 
man has a tolerable certainty that he may obtain his share 
of it as an exchanger; and the greater the store the greater 
the certainty that his labor, or the power of adding to the 
store, will obtain a full proportion of what previous labor 
has gathered together. 

In 1856,* the amount of money vested to the account of 
depositors in seventy-three of the savings-banks of Massa¬ 
chusetts, was $27,296,216 —paying an annual interest of 
more than a million of dollars. The statistics of Great Brit¬ 
ain inform us, that since the establishment of these institu¬ 
tions in that kingdom down to the year 1853, the gross 
amount of interest paid to depositors was upward of one 
hundred and fourteen millions of dollars. The capital 
which has so fructified as to produce one hundred and four¬ 
teen millions as interest, was the result of the small accumu¬ 
lations, penny by penny, shilling by shilling, and dollar by 

* The Annual Reports of the Savings-banks of Massachusetts for 1856, 
show the wonderful growth of these institutions since 1834, a period of 


21 years: 

In 1834 the total number of depositors was.24,256 

Amount deposited.$3,407,773 90 

In 1855, total number of depositors.148,263 

Amount deposited...$27,296,216 75 


The increase of deposits since 1845 has been about $1*7,500,000, -and 
the increase of depositors about 100,000. About one eighth the popula¬ 
tion of Massachusetts are depositors in these banks. If the entire sum 
was divided among all the depositors, it would give each $180. 






FEATURES OF ACCUMULATION. 


65 


dollar, of the savings of that class of persons who, in every 
country, have the greatest difficulty in accumulating. Habit¬ 
ual efforts of self-denial, and a rigid determination to postpone 
temporary gratification to permanent good, could alone have 
enabled these accumulators to retain so much of what they 
had produced beyond the amount of what they consumed. 

The capital sum of more than twenty-seven millions now 
belonging to the depositors in the seventy-three savings- 
banks of Massachusetts, represents as many products of in¬ 
dustry as could be bought by that sum. It is a capital 
which remains for the encouragement of productive con¬ 
sumption ; that is, it is now applied as a fund for setting 
others to produce, to enable them to consume while they 
produce, and in like manner to accumulate some part of 
their productions beyond what they consume. The amount 
of interest which the depositors have received is the price 
paid for the use of the capital by others who require its em¬ 
ployment. The whole amount of our national riches—the 
capital of this and of every other country—has been formed 
by the same slow but certain process of individual savings, 
and the accumulations of savings, stimulating new industry, 
and yielding new accumulations. 

The consumption of any production is the destruction of 
its value. The production was created by industry to ad¬ 
minister to individual wants, to be consumed, to be de¬ 
stroyed. When a thing capable of being consumed is pro¬ 
duced, a value is created; when it is consumed, that value 
is destroyed. The general mass of riches then remains the 
same as it was before that production took place. If the 
power to produce, and the disposition to consume, were 
equal and constant, there could be no saving, no accumula¬ 
tion, no capital. If mankind, by their intelligence, their 
skill, their division of employments, their union of forces, 
had not put themselves in a condition to produce more than 


FEATURES OF ACCUMULATION 


<?6 

is consumed while the great number of industrious under¬ 
takings are in progress, society would have been stationary, 
civilization could never have advanced. 

It may assist us in making the value of capital more clear, 
if we take a rapid view of the most obvious features of the 
accumulation of a highly civilized country. 

The first operation in a newly settled country is what is 
termed to clear it. Look at a civilized country, such as the 
United States. It is cleared. The encumbering woods are 
cut down, the unhealthy marshes are drained. The noxious 
animals which were once the principal inhabitants of the 
land are exterminated; and their place is supplied with use¬ 
ful creatures, bred, nourished, and domesticated by human 
art, and multiplied to an extent exactly proportioned to the 
wants of the population. Forests remain for the produce 
of timber, but they are confined within the limits of their 
utility; mountains “where the nibbling flocks do stray,” 
have ceased to be barriers between nations and districts. 
Every vegetable that the diligence of man has been able to 
transplant from the most distant regions is raised for food. 
The fields are producing a provision for the coming year; 
while the stock for immediate consumption is ample, and 
the laws of demand and supply are so perfectly in action, 
and the facilities of communication with every region so un¬ 
impeded, that scarcity seldom occurs, and famine never. 
Rivers have been narrowed to bounds which limit their in¬ 
undations, and they have been made navigable wherever 
their navigation could be profitable. The country is cov¬ 
ered with roads, with canals, and now, more especially, with 
rail-roads, which render distant States as near to each other 
for commercial purposes as neighboring villages in less ad¬ 
vanced countries. Science has created the electric tele¬ 
graph, by which prices are equalized through every district, 
by an instant communication between producers and con- 


IN A CIVILIZED COUNTRY. 


67 . 


sumers. Houses, all possessing some comforts which were 
unknown even to the rich a few centuries ago, cover the 
land, in scattered farm-houses and mansions, in villages, in 

towns, and in cities. These houses are filled with an almost 
• . # 
inconceivable number of conveniences and luxuries—furni¬ 
ture, glass, porcelain, plate, linen, clothes, books, pictures. 
In the stores of the merchants and traders the resources of 
human ingenuity are displayed in every variety of sub¬ 
stances and forms that can exhibit the multitude of civilized 
wants; and in the manufactories are seen the wonderful 
adaptations of science for satisfying those wants at the 
cheapest cost. The people who inhabit such a civilized land 
have not only the readiest communication with each other 
by the means of roads and canals, but can trade by the 
agency of ships with all parts of the world. To carry on 
their intercourse among themselves they speak one common 
language, reduced to certain rules, and not broken into an 
embarrassing variety of unintelligible dialects. Their writ¬ 
ten communications are conveyed to the obscurest corners 
of their own country, and even to the most remote lands, 
with prompt and unfailing regularity, and now with a cheap¬ 
ness which makes the poorest and the richest equal in their 
power to connect the distant with their thoughts by mutual 
correspondence. Whatever is transacted in such a populous 
hive, the knowledge of which can afford profit or amuse¬ 
ment to the community, is recorded with a rapidity which is 
not more astonishing than the general accuracy of the rec¬ 
ord. What is more important, the discoveries of science, 
the elegances of literature, and all that can advance the 
general intelligence, are preserved and diffused with the 
utmost ease, expedition, and security, so that the public 
stock of knowledge is constantly increasing. Lastly, the 
general well-being of all is sustained by laws—sometimes 
indeed imperfectly devised and expensively administered— 


68 


LAWS OF EXCHANGE. 


but on the whole of infinite value to every member of the 
. community; and the property of all is defended from ex¬ 
ternal invasion and from internal anarchy by the power of 
government, which % will be respected only in proportion as 
it advances the general good of the humblest of its subjects, 
by securing their capital from plunder and defending their 
industry from oppression. 

This capital is ready to be won by the power of every 
man capable of work. But he must exercise this power in 
complete subjection to the natural laws by which every ex¬ 
change of society is regulated. These laws sometimes pre¬ 
vent labor being instantly exchanged with capital, for an 
exchange necessarily requires a balance to be preserved 
between what one man has to supply and what another man 
has to demand; but in their general effect they secure to 
labor the certainty that there shall be abundance of capital 
to exchange with; and that, if prudence and diligence go 
together, the laborer may himself become a capitalist, and 
even pass out of the condition of a laborer into that of a 
proprietor, or one who lives upon accumulated produce. 
The experience of every day, especially in the United States, 
where lowliness of birth or position is no barrier to success, 
shows this process going forward—not in a solitary instance, 
as in that of the ruined and restored man whose tale we have 
just told—but in the case of nearly all our eminent mer¬ 
chants, manufacturers and capitalists, whose commencement 
in life was of the most humble character. That noble New 
England merchant, Amos Lawrence, whose beneficence and 
charity is to be counted in hundreds of thousands of dollars, 
came to Boston, his clothes in a bundle and a few dollars in 
his pocket, to enter as a subordinate clerk in the store of a 
small trader. The germ of the colossal fortune acquired by 
John Jacob Astor, was once contained in the small pack 
which he bore upon his shoulders in the capacity of a trav- 


LAWS OF EXCHANGE 


69 


eling merchant. Instances of a similar nature are familiar 
to every one. But if the laborer or the great body of la¬ 
borers were to imagine that they could obtain such a pro¬ 
portion of the capital of a civilized country except as 
exchangers, the store would instantly vanish. They might, 
perhaps, divide by force the crops in barns and the clothes 
in warehouses; but there would be no more crops or 
clothes. The principle upon which all accumulation de¬ 
pends, that of security of property, being destroyed, the 
accumulation would be destroyed. Whatever tends to 
make the state of society insecure, tends to prevent the 
employment of capital. In despotic countries, that insecu¬ 
rity is produced by the tyranny of one. In other countries, 
where the people, having been misgoverned, are badly edu¬ 
cated, that insecurity is produced by the tyranny of many. 
In either case, the bulk of the people themselves are the 
first to suffer, whether by the outrages of a tyrant or by 
their own outrages. They prevent labor by driving away 
to other channels the funds which support labor. 

Of all the causes or agencies which can affect the industry 
and production, and consequently the civilization and well¬ 
being of any people, the most disastrous and destructive is 
that which arises from public oppression and unjust legisla¬ 
tion. “ It drinks up,” says an eminent writer on political 
economy, “the spirit of a people by inflicting wrong through 
means of an agency which was created for the sole purpose 
of preventing wrong; and which was intended to be the 
ultimate and faithful refuge of the friendless. When the 
antidote for evil becomes the source of evil, what hope for 
man is left ? When society itself sets the example of pecu¬ 
lation, what shall prevent the individuals of society from 
imitating that example ? Hence private injustice is always 
the prolific parent of private violence. The result is, that 
capital emigrates, production ceases, and a nation either 


70 CONDITION OF TURKEY AND EGYPT. 

sinks down in hopeless dependence, or else the people, har¬ 
assed beyond endurance, and believing that their condition 
can not be made worse by any change, rush into all the 
horrors of civil war.” A forcible illustration of such a state 
of affairs as has been described, may be found in the pres¬ 
ent condition of Turkey and Egypt. The oppression and 
extortion of the government, the rapacity and venality of 
all officials, have impaired the sense of security, both as re¬ 
gards property and person, discouraged industry, confined 
the routine of agriculture within the rudest limits, and 
forced the great bulk of the population to live in a state of 
semi-barbarism. “ The great proportion of the agricultur¬ 
alists,” says Thornton, in his late Avork on Turkey, “ cul¬ 
tivate the same articles of produce, and pursue the same 
course of culture; consequently every man possesses a su¬ 
perfluity of the article his neighbor is desirous of selling;” 
hence there are no exchanges. “ In consequence of the 
government regulations, the Avhole grain crops frequently 
remain nearly ten months in the open air, on the thrashing- 
floors, merely to prevent the cultivator from extracting 
some portion for the use of his family, without paying the 
tax on this trifle.” As might be expected, the value of la¬ 
bor and land is reduced to the lowest point. Civil commo¬ 
tions and private outrage are common, while population 
remains permanent or decreases. 

A notable instance of the effect of unjust measures on the 
part of both government and people in paralyzing the ener¬ 
gies and arresting the progress of a whole nation, may be 
found in the intolerant and fanatical persecution of the Jews 
and Moors of Spain, which resulted in their expulsion or 
voluntary emigration from that country. These tAvo classes 
composed the bulk of the intelligent industrial population 
of Spain, the artificers, the mechanics, the merchants, the 
bankers, and a majority of the capitalists engaged in trade 


EFFECTS OF NATIONAL INJUSTICE 


71 


or commerce. The result of such impolitic measures, as 
was foretold at the time, has been to cripple the resources 
of the country, convert flourishing districts into uninhabited 
wastes, dry up the currents of trade and to diminish capi¬ 
tal ; to no other single act of policy is Spain more indebted 
for her present impoverished and degraded condition, than 
to the treatment of her Moorish and Jewish subjects in the 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. We find another striking 
instance of the effect of oppression on the part of the State on 
the people, in diminishing national production and wealth, 
in the expulsion of the French Huguenots from France, by 
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. This act, while it 
inflicted a most severe blow upon the industrial resources 
and power of France, augmented the capital and the skill 
of the neighboring nations which received the fugitives. 

The adoption of any measures by the government, or 
people of the United States, which could in any degree 
tend to prevent, or divert the great tide of emigration of 
labor and capital from Europe to our shores, would only 
find a parallel in its disastrous effects, with the instances 
above cited.* 

In some eastern countries, where, when a man becomes 

* In the year 1849, the whole number of foreign emigrants arriving at 
the different ports of the United States was 296,000. If we estimate the 
value of labor, the skill, and the capital of each of these emigrants at only 
one hundred dollars, we have an augmentation of the national wealth in 
a single year, of more than twenty-nine millions. When we reflect, how¬ 
ever, that the great majority of these emigrants are able-bodied men and 
women, accustomed to hard, persevering labor—many to skilled labor— 
that numbers also possess, in money or implements, varying amounts of 
capital, the estimated value of each to the country, which we have given, 
will appear too inconsiderable. Estimating the value at five hundred 
dollars, less than half the amount of an able-bodied negro-slave, we have 
the enormous sum of $148,000,000, added to the wealth of the United 
States in a single year, from foreign emigration alone. 


72 


INSECURITY OF PROPERTY IN THE EAST. 


rich, his property is seized upon by the one tyrant, nobody 
dares to avow that he has any property. Capital is not em¬ 
ployed ; it is hidden: and the people who have capital live 
not upon its profits, but by the diminution of the capital 
itself. In the very earliest times we hear of concealed 
riches. In the book of Job those who “ long for death” are 
said to “ dig for it more than for hid treasures.” The tales 
of the East are full of allusions to money buried and money 
dug up. The poor woodman, in making up his miserable 
faggot, discovers a trap-door, and becomes rich. In India, 
where the rule of Mohammedan princes was usually one of 
tyranny, even now the search after treasure goes on. The 
popular mind is filled with the old traditions; and so men 
dream of bags of gold to be discovered in caves and places 
of desolation, and they forthwith dig, till hope is banished, 
and the real treasure is found in systematic industry. It 
was the same in the feudal times in England, when the lord 
tyrannized over his vassals, and no property was safe but in 
the hands of the strongest. In those times people who had 
treasure buried it. Who thinks of burying treasure now in 
England ? In the plays and story-books which depict the 
manners of early times, we constantly read of people find¬ 
ing bags of money. The people of England never find bags 
of money now, except when a very old hoard, hidden in 
some time of national trouble, comes to light. So little 
time ago as the reign of Charles II., we read of the Secre¬ 
tary to the Admiralty going down from London to his 
country-house, with all his money in his carriage, to bury it 
in his garden. What Samuel Pepys records of his doings 
with his own money, was a natural consequence of the prac¬ 
tices of a previous time. He also chronicles, in several 
places of his curious diary, his laborious searches, day by 
day, for £7,000 hid in butter-firkins in the cellars of the 
Tower of London. Why is money not hidden and not 


HIDDEN TREASURES-PROGRESS OF ACCUMULATION. 73 

sought for now ? Because people have security for the em¬ 
ployment of .it, and by the employment of it in creating 
new produce the nation’s stock of capital goes on hourly in¬ 
creasing. When we read in Blackstone’s “ Commentaries 
on the Laws of England,” that the concealment of treasure- 
trove, or found treasure, from the king, is a misdemeanor 
punishable by fine and imprisonment, and that it was for¬ 
merly a capital offense, we at once see that this is a law no 
longer for our time; and we learn from this instance, as 
from many others, how the progress of civilization silently 
repeals laws which belong to another condition of the 
people. 

When we look at the nature of the accumulated wealth 
of society, it is easy to see that the poorest member of it 
who dedicates himself to profitable labor is in a certain 
sense rich—rich, as compared with the unproductive and 
therefore poor individuals of any uncivilized tribe. The very 
scaffolding, if we may so express it, of the social structure, 
and the moral forces by which that structure was reared, 
and is upheld, are to him riches. To be rich is to possess 
the means of supplying our wants; to be poor is to be des¬ 
titute of those means. Riches do not consist only of money 
and lands, of stores, of food, or clothing, of machines and 
tools. The particular knowledge of any art; the general 
understanding of the laws of nature; the habit from expe¬ 
rience of doing any work in the readiest way; the facility 
of communicating ideas by written language; the enjoy¬ 
ment of institutions conceived in the spirit of social improve¬ 
ment ; the use of the general conveniences of civilized life, 
such as roads : these advantages, which the poorest man in 
the United States possesses, or may possess, constitute indi¬ 
vidual property. They are means for the supply of wants, 
which in themselves are essentially more valuable for ob¬ 
taining his full share of what is appropriated, than if all the 

4 


74 


PROGRESS OF ACCUMULATION. 


productive powers of nature were unappropriated, and if, 
consequently, these great elements of civilization did not 
exist. Society obtains its almost unlimited command over 
riches by the increase and preservation of knowledge, and 
by the division of employments, including union of power. 
In his double capacity of a consumer and a producer, the 
humblest man has the full benefit of these means of wealth— 
of these great instruments by which the productive power 
of labor is carried to its highest point. 

But if these common advantages, these public means of 
society, offering so many important agents to the individual 
for the gratification of his wants, alone are worth more to 
him than all the precarious power of the savage state—how 
incomparably greater are his advantages when we consider 
the wonderful accumulations, in the form of private wealth, 
which are ready to be exchanged with the labor of all those 
who are in a condition to add to the store. It has been 
truly said by M. Say, a French economist, “It is a great 
misfortune to be poor, but it is a much greater misfortune 
for the poor man to be surrounded only with other poor 
like himself.” The reason is obvious. The productive 
power of labor can be carried but a very little way without 
accumulation of capital. In a highly civilized country, cap¬ 
ital is heaped up on every side by ages of toil and perse¬ 
verance. A succession, during a long series of years, of 
small advantages to individuals unceasingly renewed and 
carried forward by the principle of exchanges, has produced 
this prodigious amount of the aggregate capital of a country 
whose civilization is of ancient date. This accumulation of 
the means of existence, and of all that makes existence com¬ 
fortable, is principally resulting from the labors of those 
who have gone before us. It is a stock which was beyond 
their own immediate wants, and which was not extinguished 


PROGRESS OF ACCUMULATION. 


75 


with their lives. It is our capital. It has been produced 
by labor alone, physical and mental. It can be kept up 
only by the same power which has created it, carried to the 
highest point of productiveness by the arrangements of 
society. 


CHAPTER VI. 


COMMON INTERESTS OF CAPITAL AND LABOR.—LABOR DIRECTED BT ACCUMULATION. 
—CAPITAL ENHANCED BT LABOR.—BALANCE OP RIGHTS AND DUTIES.—RELATION 
OF DEMAND AND SUPPLY.—MONEY EXCHANGES. 


There is an old proverb, that “ When two men ride on 
one horse, one man must ride behind.” Capital and Labor 
are, as we think, destined to perform a journey together to 
the end of time. We have shown how they proceed on 
this journey. We have shown that, although Labor is the 
parent of all wealth, its struggles for the conversion of the 
rude supplies of nature into objects of utility are most feeble 
in their effects till they are assisted by accumulation. Be¬ 
fore the joint interests of Labor and Capital were at all un¬ 
derstood, they kept separate; when they only began to be 
understood, as we shall show, they were constantly pulling 
different ways, instead of giving “ a long pull, a strong pull, 
and a pull altogetherand even now, when these interests 
in many respects are still imperfectly understood, they oc¬ 
casionally quarrel about the conditions upon which they 
will continue to travel in company. In the very outset of 
the journey, Labor, doubtless, took the lead. In the dim 
morning of society Labor was up and stirring before Capital 
was awake. Labor did not then ride; he traveled slowly 
on foot through very dirty ways. Capital, at length, as 
slowly followed after, through the same mire, but at an 
humble distance from his parent. But when Capital grew 
into strength, he saw that there were quicker and more 


FIRST STEPS TOWARD PRODUCTION. 


11 


agreeable modes of traveling for both than Labor had found 
out. He procured that fleet and untiring horse Exchange; 
and when he proposed to Labor that they should mount to¬ 
gether, he claimed the right, and kept it, for their mutual 
benefit, of taking the direction of the horse. For this rea¬ 
son, as it appears to us, we are called upon to assign to one 
of the companions, according to the practice of the old 
Knights Templars, the privilege of sitting before the other 
—holding the reins, indeed, but in all respects having a 
community of interests and an equality of duties, as well as 
rights, with his fellow-traveler. 

Let us endeavor to advance another step, in the illustra¬ 
tion of these positions, by going back to the prodigal who 
had spent all his substance. Let us survey him at the mo¬ 
ment when he had made the wise, and in many respects 
heroic, resolution to pass from the condition of a consumer 
into that of a producer. The story says, “ The first thing 
that drew his attention was a heap of coals shot out of a 
cart on the pavement before a house. He offered himself 
to shovel or wheel them into the place where they were to 
be laid, and was employed.” Here, then, we see that the 
labor of this man was wholly and imperatively directed by 
accumulation. It was directed as absolutely by the accu¬ 
mulation of others as the labor of Dampier’s Mosquito In¬ 
dian was directed by his own accumulation. The Indian 
could not labor profitably—he could not obtain fish and 
goats for his food, instead of seal’s flesh—till he had called 
into action the power which he possessed in his knife and 
his gun-barrel. The prodigal had no accumulation whatever 
of his own. He had not even the accumulation of peculiar 
skill in any mode of labor; for a continual process of waste 
enlarges neither the mental nor physical faculties, and gen¬ 
erally leaves the wretched being who has to pass into the 
new condition of a producer as helpless as the weakest child. 


78 


VALUE OF MONET EXCHANGES. 


He had nothing hut the lowest power, of laboring without 
peculiar knowledge or skill. He had, however, an intensity 
and consistency of purpose which raised this humble power 
into real strength. He was determined never to go back¬ 
ward, always to go on. He knew, too, his duties as well as 
his rights; and he saw that he must wholly accommodate 
his power to the greater power which was in action around 
him. When he passed into the condition of a producer, he 
saw that his powers and rights were wholly limited and di¬ 
rected by the principles necessary to advance production; 
and that his own share of what he assisted in producing 
must be measured by the laws which enabled him to produce 
at all. He found himself in a position where his labor was 
absolutely governed by the system of exchanges. 1STo other 
system could operate around him, because* he was in a civil¬ 
ized country. Had he been thrown upon a desert land with¬ 
out food and shelter, his labor must have been instantly and 
directly applied to procuring food and shelter. He was 
equally without food and shelter in a civilized country. 
But the system of exchanges being in action, he did not 
apply his labor directly to the production of food and lodg¬ 
ing for himself. He added by his labor a new value to a 
heap of coals; he enabled another man more readily to ac¬ 
quire the means of warmth; and by this service, which he 
exchanged for “ a few pence” and “ a small gratuity of meat 
and drink,” he indirectly obtained food and lodging. He 
conferred an additional value upon a heap of coals, and that 
additional value was represented by the “ few pence” and 
“ a small gratuity of meat and drink.” Had the system of 
exchange been less advanced, that is, had society been less 
civilized, he would probably have exchanged his labor for 
some object of utility by another and a ruder mode. He 
would have received a portion of the coals as the price of 
the labor by which he gave an additional value to the whole 


INCREASE OP VALUE CONFERRED BY LABOR. 


79 


heap. But mark the inconvenience of such a mode of ex¬ 
change. His first want was food; his next, shelter. Had 
he earned the coals, he must have carried them about till he 
had found some other person ready to exchange food and 
lodging for coals. Such an occurrence might have hap¬ 
pened, but it would have been a lucky accident. He could 
find all persons ready to exchange food and clothes for 
money, because money was ready again to exchange for 
other articles of utility which they might require, and which 
they would more readily obtain by the money than by the 
food and clothes which our laborer had received for them. 
During the course of the unprofitable labor of waiting till 
he had found an exchanger who wanted coals, he might 
have perished. What, then, gave him the means of profit¬ 
able labor, and furnished him with an article which every 
one was ready to receive in exchange for articles of imme¬ 
diate necessity? Capital in two forms. The heap of coals 
was capital. The coals represented a very great and vari¬ 
ous accumulation of former labor that had been employed 
in giving them value. The coals were altogether valueless 
till labor had been employed to raise them from the pit, and 
to convey them to the door of the man who was about to 
consume them. But with what various helps had this labor 
worked! Mere manual labor could have done little or noth¬ 
ing with the coals in the pit. Machines had raised them 
from the pit. Machines had transported them from the pit 
to the door of the consumer. They would have remained 
buried in the earth but for large accumulations of knowl¬ 
edge, and large accumulations of pecuniary wealth to set 
that knowledge in action by exchanging with it. The heap 
of coals represented all this accumulation; and it more im¬ 
mediately represented the Circulating Capital of consuma¬ 
ble articles of utility, which had been paid in the shape of 
wages at every stage of the labor exercised in raising the 


so 


INCREASE OF YALUE CONFERRED BY LABOR. 


coals from the mine, and conveying them to the spot in 
which the prodigal found them laid. The coals had almost 
attained their highest value by a succession of labor, but 
one labor was still wanting to give them the highest value. 
They were at their lowest value when they remained un¬ 
broken in the coal-pit; they were at their highest value 
when they were deposited in the cellar of the consumer. 
For that last labor there was circulating capital ready to be 
exchanged. The man whose course of production we have 
been tracing imparted to them this last value, and for this 
labor he received a “ few pence” and a “ gratuity of meat 
and drink.” These consumable commodities, and the money 
which might be exchanged for other consumable commodi¬ 
ties, were circulating capital. They supplied his most press¬ 
ing wants with incomparably more readiness and certainty 
than if he had been turned loose among the unappropriated 
productions of nature with unlimited freedom and absolute 
rights. In the state in which he was actually placed, his 
rights were limited by his duties; but this balance of rights 
and duties was the chief instrument in the satisfaction of his 
wants. Let us examine the principle a little more in detail. 

An exchange was to be carried on between the owner of 
the coals and the man who was willing to shovel them into 
the owner’s cellar. The laborer did not want any distinct 
portion of the coals, but he wanted some articles of more 
urgent necessity in exchange for the new value which he 
was ready to bestow upon the coals. The object of each 
exchanger was, that labor should be exchanged with capi¬ 
tal. That object could not have been accomplished, or 
it would have been accomplished slowly, imperfectly, and 
therefore unprofitably, unless there had been interchange¬ 
able freedom and security for both exchangers—for the 
exchanger of capital and the exchanger of labor. The first 
right of the laborer was, that his labor should be free; the 


DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 


81 


first right of the capitalist was, that his capital should be 
free. The rights of each were built upon the security of 
property. Could this security have been violated, it might 
have happened, either that the laborer should have been 
compelled to shovel in the coals, or that the capitalist should 
have been compelled to employ the laborer to shovel them 
in. Had the lot of the unfortunate prodigal been cast in 
such a state of society as would have allowed this violation 
of the natural rights of the laborer and the capitalist, he 
would have found little accumulation to give a profitable 
direction to his labor. He would have found production 
suspended or languishing. There would probably have 
been no heap of coals wanting his labor to give them the 
last value; for the engines would have been idle that raised 
them from the pit, and the men would have been idle that 
directed the engines. The circulating capital that found 
wages for the men and fuel for the engines, would have 
been idle, because it could not have worked with security. 
Accumulation, therefore, would have been suspended; and 
all profitable labor would, in consequence, have been sus¬ 
pended. It was the unquestionable right of the laborer 
that his labor should be free; but it was balanced by the 
right of the capitalist that his accumulation should be se¬ 
cure. Could the labor have seized upon the capital, or the 
capital upon the labor, production would have been stopped 
altogether, or in part. The mutual freedom and security 
of labor and capital compel production to go‘forward; and 
labor and capital take their respective stations, and perform 
their respective duties, altogether with reference to the laws 
which govern production. These laws are founded upon 
the natural act of the system of exchange, carrying forward 
all its operations by the natural action of the great principle 
of demand and supply. When capital and labor know how 
to accommodate themselves to the direction of these natu- 

4% 


82 


DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 


ral laws, they are in a healthy state with respect to their 
individual rights, and the rights of industry generally. 
They are in that state in which each is working to the 
greatest profit in carrying forward the business of pro¬ 
duction. 

The story of the prodigal goes on to say, “ He then looked 
out for the next thing that might chance to offer; and went 
with indefatigable industry through a succession of servile 
employments in different places, of longer or shorter du¬ 
ration.” Here we see the principle of Demand and Supply 
still in active operation. u He looked out for the next thing 
that might chance to offer.” He was ready with his supply 
of labor immediately that he saw a demand for it. Doubt¬ 
less the “ indefatigable industry” with which he was ready 
with his supply created a demand, and thus he had in some 
degree a control over the demand. But in most cases the 
demand went before the supply, and he had thus to watch 
and wait upon the demand. In many instances demand and 
supply exercise a joint influence and control, each with re¬ 
gard to the other. Pliny, the Roman naturalist, relates that 
in the year 454 after the building of Rome (300 years before 
Christ) a number of barbers came over from Sicily to shave 
the Romans, who till that time had worn long beards. But 
the barbers came in consequence of being sent for by a 
man in authority. The demand here distinctly went before 
the supply; but the supply, doubtless, acted greatly upon 
the demand. During a time of wild financial speculation in 
Paris, created by what is called the Mississippi bubble, a 
hump-backed man went daily into the street where the 
stock-jobbers were accustomed to assemble, and earned 
money by allowing them to sign their contracts upon the 
natural desk with which he was encumbered. The hump¬ 
back was doubtless a shrewd fellow, and saw the difficulty 
under which the stock-jobbers labored. He supplied what 


DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 


83 


they appeared to want, and a demand was instantly created 
for his hump. He was well paid, says the story. That was 
because the supply was smaller than the demand. If other 
men with humps had been attracted by the demand, or if 
persons had come to the street with portable desks more 
convenient than the hump, the reward of his service would 
naturally have become less. He must have yielded to the 
inevitable law by which the amount of circulating capital, 
as compared with the number of laborers, prescribes the 
terms upon which capital and labor are united. 

By following the direction which capital gave to his in¬ 
dustry, the prodigal, whose course we have traced up to 
the point when he went into the condition of a laborer, 
became at length a capitalist. “He had gained, after a 
considerable time, money enough to purchase, in order to 
sell again, a few cattle, of which he had taken pains to un¬ 
derstand the value. He speedily, but cautiously, turned 
his first gains into second advantages; retained, without a 
single deviation, his extreme parsimony; and thus advanced 
by degrees into larger transactions and incipient wealth. 
The final result was that he more than recovered his lost 
possessions, and died an inveterate miser, worth £ 60 , 000 .” 

He gained “ money,” and he “ purchased” cattle. In the 
simple transaction which has been recorded of the first 
exchange of the prodigal’s labor for capital, we find the 
circumstances which represent every exchange of labor for 
capital. The prodigal wanted meat and drink, and he gave 
labor in exchange for meat and drink; the capitalist wanted 
the produce of labor—he wanted a new value bestowed 
upon his coals by labor—and he gave meat and drink in 
exchange for the labor which the prodigal had to give. 
But the prodigal wanted something beyond the meat and 
drink which was necessary for the supply of the day. He 
had other immediate necessities beyond food, and he had 


84 


EXCHANGE OF LABOR FOR CAPITAL. 


determined to accumulate capital. He therefore required 
“ a few pence” in addition to the “ meat and drink.” The 
capitalist held that the labor performed had conferred a 
value upon his property, which would be fairly exchanged 
for the pence in addition to the food, and he gave, there¬ 
fore, in exchange, that portion of his capital which was 
represented by the money and by the food. This blending 
of one sort of consumable commodity, and of the money 
which represented any other consumable commodity which 
the money could be exchanged with, was an accident aris¬ 
ing out of the peculiar circumstances in which the prodigal 
happened to be placed. In ordinary cases he would have 
received the money alone; that is, he would have received 
a larger sum of money to enable him to exchange for meat 
and drink, instead of receiving them in direct payment. 
It is clear, therefore, that as the money represented one 
portion of the consumable commodities which were ready 
to pay for the labor employed in giving a new value to the 
coals, it might represent another portion—the meat, for in¬ 
stance, without the drink; or it might represent all the 
consumable commodities, meat, drink, lodging, clothes, 
hi el, which that particular laborer might want; and even 
represent the accumulation which he might extract out of 
his self-denial as to the amount of meat, drink, lodging, 
clothes, and fuel, which he might require as a consumer; 
and the farthing saved out of his money-payment might be 
the nest-egg which was to produce the increase out of which 
he purchased cattle, and died a rich miser. 

We may be excused for calling attention to the fact, 
which is a very obvious one, that if the laborer, whose story 
we have told, had received a portion of the coals upon 
which he had conferred a new value in exchange for the 
labor which produced that value, he would have been paid 
in a way very unfavorable for production. It would have 


IMPERFECT EXCHANGE. 


85 


required a new labor before the coals could have procured 
him the meat, and drink, and lodging of which he had an 
instant want; and he therefore must have received a larger 
portion of coals to compensate for his new labor, or other¬ 
wise his labor must have been worse paid. There would 
have been unprofitable labor, whose loss must have fallen 
somewhere—either upon the capitalist or the laborer in 
the first instance, but upon both ultimately, because there 
would have been less production. All the unprofitable labor 
employed in bringing the exchange of the first labor for 
capital to maturity would have been so much power with¬ 
drawn from the efficiency of the next labor to be performed; 
and therefore production would have been impeded to the 
extent of that unprofitable labor. The same thing would 
have happened if, advancing a step forward in the science 
of exchange, the laborer had received an entire payment in 
meat and drink, instead of a portion of the coals, which he 
could have exchanged for meat and drink. Wanting lodg¬ 
ing, he would have had to seek a person who wanted meat 
and drink in exchange for lodging, before he could have 
obtained lodging. But he had a few pence—he had money. 
He had a commodity to exchange that he might divide and 
subdivide as long as he pleased, while he was carrying on 
an exchange—that is, he might obtain as much lodging as 
he required for an equivalent portion of his money. If he 
kept his money, it would not injure by keeping, as the food 
would. He might carry it from place to place more easily 
than he could carry the food. He would have a commodity 
to exchange, wffiose value could not be made matter of dis¬ 
pute, as the value of meat and drink would unquestionably 
have been. This commodity would represent the same value, 
with little variation, whether he kept it a day, or a week, 
or a month, or a year: and therefore would be the only 
commodity whose retention would advance his design of 


86 


INTRINSIC AND REPRESENTATIVE EXCHANGE. 


accumulating capital with certainty and steadiness. It is 
evident that a commodity possessing all these advantages 
must Iiave some intrinsic qualities which all exchangers 
would recognize—that it must be a standard of value—at 
once a commodity possessing real value, and a measure 
of all other values. This commodity exists in all commer¬ 
cial or exchanging nations in the shape of coined metal. 
The offices and functions of money, the relations which it 
sustains to every civilized society, its immediate agency in 
increasing production and facilitating distribution, are sub¬ 
jects concerning which many erroneous ideas are enter¬ 
tained, and many absurd and unfounded statements promul¬ 
gated. Upon these topics the most distinguished writers 
on political economy and finance disagree most widely. 
The true position, however, we believe, has been recently 
taken for the first time, by an eminent American writer,* 
who clearly shows, that money, considered simply as a ma¬ 
chine—an instrument—for effecting changes in ownership, 
ranks first among the labor-saving inventions of man, and 
that as the producer of motion, and the instigator of in¬ 
dustrial effort, it sustains to society the same relation which 
food sustains to the body. That this is really the case, we 
shall attempt to show in the succeeding chapter. 



ANCIENT ROMAN MONEY. 


* Henry C. Carey. 



CHAPTER VII* 


MACHINERY OF EXCHANGE.—EXCHANGE LIMITED IN NEW COUNTRIES.—CHANGE IN 
PLACE.—CHANGE IN FORM.—CHANGE IN OWNERSHIP.—ESSENTIAL QUALITIES OF A 
CIRCULATING MEDIUM.—ADVANTAGES POSSESSED BY GOLD AND SILVER FOR USE 
AS MONEY.—EXCHANGE IN KIND.—MONEY AN INSTRUMENT FOR SAVING LABOR. 
EFFECTS OF AN ABUNDANT SUPPLY OF GOLD AND SILVER.—SIBERIA, PERU, AND 
CALIFORNIA POOR.—ENGLAND RICH.—TRUE OFFICES OF MONEY. 

Exchange, like every other industrial operation, can only 
be carried on by the use of certain instrumental agencies, or 
machinery, upon the completeness of which the perfection 
of the result depends. These instrumentalities are of three 
kinds, namely, those by which we effect change of place— 
those by which we effect change of form, and lastly, those 
by which we effect change of ownership. The machinery 
which we employ to effect change in place, is beasts of bur¬ 
den, ships, bridges, roads and canals, wagons, and cars; 
the machinery necessary to effect changes in form, is spades 
and axes, plows, wheels, steam-engines, mills, furnaces, etc. 
The machinery required to effect change in ownership, is 
money. 

The progress by which these various instrumentalities 
have been perfected has been gradual—the result mainly of 
experience and necessity. The laws and principles upon 
which they depend are common to all, and united and 

* The Editor is indebted in great part for the following chapter to 
Henry C. Carey, Esq., of Philadelphia, whose able pamphlet on “Money,” 
published in 1855 , has been used with the permission and sanction of the 
author. 


88 


MACHINERY OF EXCHANGE. 


co-operative they constitute the structure of all commercial 
and industrial transactions. As no combination of machin¬ 
ery moves perfectly unless its several parts are well fitted 
to each other, and proportioned to the whole, so the great 
system of exchange works imperfectly, and ceases to stimu¬ 
late production, distribution, and consumption, to the high¬ 
est degree, unless all its instrumentalities are well adapted 
to the operations which they are required to facilitate and 
discharge. This will appear obvious, by examining the 
three forms of machinery employed in exchange, and their 
inthnate connection with each other, somewhat in detail. 

Exchange among rude nations, or in the early settlements 
of any country, must necessarily be limited on account of 
the obstacles which restrict intercommunication among in¬ 
dividuals, and oppose change of place among objects. A 
wide and rapid river, an arm of the sea, a desert, or a 
wilderness, have often proved a complete barrier, cutting 
off all intercourse between two contiguous tribes or nations. 
In Russia, at this present time, and the same was true in 
Western Europe during the middle ages, owing to the lack 
of facilities for intercommunication, the bulk of all ex¬ 
changes for particular sections of country are made alto¬ 
gether and at one place, by means of fairs held at consider¬ 
able intervals of time. During the time between the occur¬ 
rence of these fairs, comparatively few exchanges are effect¬ 
ed. In the early settlement of the United States, the roads 
were mere Indian trails, or bridle paths, and all transport of 
merchandise was made in packs, borne upon the shoulders 
of men, or loaded upon horses. When the Rev. Mr. Hooker 
and his little company journeyed from Massachusetts Bay 
to the valley of the Connecticut to found the settlement 
of Hartford, several weeks were consumed in travers¬ 
ing a section of country, which can now be passed over in 
half a day. When the settlement had been established and 


MACHINERY OF EXCHANGE. 


89 


the culture of the earth commenced, it is obvious that but 
few exchanges could have taken place between the new 
colony of Connecticut and the people of Boston; since the 
time and labor expended in transporting the articles to be 
exchanged, would nearly equal, or exceed their value. If 
the people of Hartford proposed to exchange corn for axes, 
or nails, with the merchant at Boston, the owner of the 
grain would receive but a very small proportion of the 
value paid by the merchant, while the latter would receive 
but a small proportion of the value of the grain paid by the 
agriculturalists: the transporter in both instances coming be¬ 
tween the producer and consumer to absorb the largest pro¬ 
portion of the value of the articles exchanged. In the four¬ 
teenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, the Venetians, the 
Florentines, the Genoese, and the Dutch, were the common 
carriers of the produce and merchandise of all the nations of 
Western Europe, and thereby gained immense wealth. We 
nowhere read, however, that the other nations, whose mer¬ 
chandise and productions were thus transported, attained 
to any high degree of prosperity during this period. On 
the contrary, they were poor, and so continued until the 
producers and consumers perceived the necessity of so per¬ 
fecting the machinery of exchange that the bulk of the 
profit should not accrue to the intermediate agents—the 
transporters. When progress has once commenced in this 
direction, the Indian trail is converted into a road, the ford¬ 
way gives place to a bridge, and the frail canoe to a com¬ 
modious and gallant vessel. Goods are no longer trans¬ 
ported upon the shoulders of men, or the backs of horses, 
but in wagons, and these in turn, at a later day, are suc¬ 
ceeded by rail-roads and canals. With every facility thus 
afforded, the cost of transportation is diminished, the pro-' 
ducer and consumer are brought nearer to each other; and 
the profits of both being increased, the amount of their ex- 


90 


MACHINERY OF EXCHANGE. 


changes increase; production is every where stimulated, pop¬ 
ulation becomes concentrated, accumulation becomes easy, 
and labor is in demand. 

Equally necessary is it for the perfection of the great system 
of exchange, that the machinery by which change of form in 
matter is effected should be complete as possible. It is im¬ 
material to the consumer whether the high price he pays 
for his article of consumption results from costliness of* man¬ 
ufacture, or costliness of transportation. In either case, an 
undue enhancement of value, limits demand, and conse¬ 
quently exchange and production are restricted. In those 
countries where the application of machinery to effect 
changes in form is rude and imperfect, or no machinery is 
used at all, the amoimt of labor that intervenes between the 
production of the raw material and the consumption of the 
manufactured product, is frequently immense. The price of 
labor, equally with the price of transportation in the former 
instance, is chargeable upon the value of the article when in 
the market, and nearly equals that value. India formerly 
supplied the world with cotton-cloth, but the labor of pro¬ 
ducing the fabric from the fiber was so enormous and ex¬ 
pensive, even in a country where wages are merely nominal, 
that comparatively little cloth was used or consumed. Ex¬ 
change consequently with India for this article was limited. 

Now, by the perfection of machinery, an operative at 
Lowell can spin more cotton in a single day than three thou¬ 
sand Hindoo artisans can accomplish in the same time. And 
it has been calculated that the machinery of Great Britain 
alone produces more cloth each week than the whole popu¬ 
lation of the globe could by their unassisted labor produce 
in the same time, working night and day. This perfection 
of machinery has been followed by a very great reduction 
of price, and a better article of cloth may now be purchased 
for six or eight cents per yard than could formerly have 


EXCHANGE LIMITED IN NEW COUNTRIES. 91 

been obtained for thirty or forty cents. Reduction of 
price has increased the demand for the manufactured prod¬ 
uct beyond all precedent, and this, in turn, has been fol¬ 
lowed by an increased demand for labor, and for the supply 
of raw material. Thus the labor of many persons has been 
brought into use, which would otherwise have been wasted 
or misapplied, and many natural productions are rendered 
available, which would otherwise have been worthless. The 
former producer finds that his time is better occupied in in¬ 
creasing the quantity of cotton rather than in manufacturing 
it, and he thereby increases his exchanges. The three thou¬ 
sand Indians whose labor is performed by one person now 
find it more profitable to impart value to other substances 
which they can exchange for cloth rather than manufac¬ 
ture for themselves; and thus an immense addition of 
industrial capital is added to the aggregate before existing. 
Every improvement in machinery perfects the product manu¬ 
factured or decreases the cost—results invariably attended 
with increased exchanges, increased* production and con¬ 
sumption, and a rapid increase of the power of accumulation. 
So long as India, with imperfect machinery for effecting the 
change of cotton into cloth, continued to supply the world, 
the production, consumption, accumulation, and exchange 
involved were comparatively unimportant; but now, when 
by the aid of machinery one man is enabled to accomplish the 
work of three thousand in the same business, the production, 
manufacture, and exchange of cotton and its products re¬ 
quire the skill, labor, and capital of millions, while the accu¬ 
mulation consequent involves the profit and wealth of nations. 

Take another example as given by Mr. Carey. In the 
early stages of society, the quantity of labor that intervenes 
between the production of grain and the consumption of 
bread is very great. The producer has to grind his rye or 
his wheat between stones, and a considerable portion of the 


92 


CHANGE IN PLACE AND FORM. 


time is thus occupied, when it could be better employed in 
increasing the quantity of grain. By degrees the grist-mill 
comes nearer to him, and he saves much time by going to 
it, although far distant. Population and wealth increases. 
A new mill is established in his immediate neighborhood, 
and he now exchanges directly with the miller, saving nearly 
all the time he had before wasted on the road; and the con¬ 
sumers of food by whom he is surrounded now obtain nearly 
all the wheat given for cloth, while its producer obtains 
nearly all the cloth given for the wheat. 

The intimate relation existing between commerce, or the 
machinery used for effecting change in place and manufac¬ 
tures, or the machinery employed for effecting changes in 
form, is strikingly shown by the manner in which any thing 
that increases the facilities of transit acts as a stimulus upon 
manufactures; and, on the other hand, every great improve¬ 
ment in manufactures necessarily leads to an increased de¬ 
velopment of commerce. More horses are now employed 
in the city of New York, in connection with the various 
rail-roads, than were formerly used upon all the stage routes 
leading directly to New York. As a consequence of this in¬ 
creased number of horses within the city, increased amounts 
of hay are required from the country for their support. This 
hay must be transported, and increased facilities of trans¬ 
portation have therefore been created. But hay is an arti¬ 
cle too bulky to be sent for any considerable distance as it 
comes from the field or the barn. It must be pressed and 
made into bales; and this new requirement has been so 
great, that within a few years several large establishments 
have been built for a new business—the manufacture of hay- 
presses—employing directly the services of a large number 
of carpenters, blacksmiths, and laborers, and indirectly all 
concerned in preparing or transporting the wood and iron 
from which the presses are constructed. 


CHANGE IN OWNERSHIP. 


93 


An immense traffic in eggs, fruit, fish, and fresh provisions 
is continually carried on between the great cities of our At¬ 
lantic seaboard and the distant States of the West by means 
of the facilities afforded by rail-way conveyance, all of which 
business, with nothing but the old wagons to depend on, 
would be obviously impossible. 

Notwithstanding the perfection attained to in the con¬ 
struction of machinery for effecting changes in the place 
and form of material objects, but few exchanges could be 
made, unless some standard were adopted, known and rec¬ 
ognized by all, by which all other values might be compared 
and measured, and through which exchange in ownership 
might be accomplished. The difficulty and inconvenience 
which, as we have before shown, the prodigal would have 
experienced had he received a remuneration for his labor, 
either in coal, in food, or in drink, would be experienced in 
a greater or less degree by every other person who is obliged 
to effect his exchanges in kind, as salt for wheat, sugar for 
iron, etc. The farmer may not require iron utensils of the 
blacksmith or shoes of the shoemaker, and yet the latter 
may have nothing else to offer him for his wheat. Again, 
if the blacksmith or the shoemaker desire clothing, it is by 
no means certain that the cloth-maker requires iron or shoes, 
although he would gladly exchange cloth for cotton or wool. 
In short, so insuperable are the difficulties of effecting any 
system of exchanges in kind, that some machinery for facili¬ 
tating these transactions has always been devised, even by 
the rudest nations. We designate such machinery employed 
for facilitating exchanges as a circulating medium—money. 

Among the North American Indians, the circulating me¬ 
dium was wampum and beaver-skins; among the natives of 
Wdst Africa, it consists of small shells, called cowries. Our 
Anglo-Saxon ancestors used slaves and cattle as the mediums 
of exchange; and going back to remote periods, we find in 


94 


ESSENTIAL QUALITIES OF 


the time of Homer, that while the price of the armor of 
Diomede was nine oxen, that of Glaucus cost him one hun¬ 
dred head of cattle. In the early history of the American 
colonies, codfish and tobacco were not unfrequently used as 
a circulating medium. 

Among all civilized or commercial nations, however, as 
wants have multiplied, and the number of exchanges ’have 
increased, the various articles used as circulating mediums 
have given place to pieces of coined or stamped metal, 
which we designate as money. Different metals have been 
used at different times for this purpose. Iron was estab¬ 
lished as money among the Spartans by Lycurgus; brass 
was used by the Homans; and in modern times platinum 
has been coined by the Russians. The metals, however, 
which most perfectly effect the desired object of facilitating 
exchanges, are gold and silver, and these two, by almost 
universal consent, have now been established as the stand¬ 
ards by which all other values are to be compared or 
measured. 

In order that any substance should be thus universally 
used and recognized as a medium of exchange, and a stand¬ 
ard of comparison for all other values, it is necessary that 
it should possess the following essential qualities and prop¬ 
erties :— 

1. It must be an article of real and intrinsic value, repre¬ 
senting the value of the labor required to produce it, or the 
value of the use to which it can be applied. 

2. Its value must also be permanent and invariable; or 
nearly so. Hence it could not be an animal or a vegetable 
production, the value of which is constantly fluctuating, 
through the agency of causes over which man has little or 
no control. Ho one would willingly exchange his commod¬ 
ities or his labor for any kind of a circulating medium which 
a change in the weather might destroy, or which would be 


A CIRCULATING MEDIUM. 


95 


certain to decay under any circumstances, within a given 
period. 

3. Convenience demands that the substance of the circu¬ 
lating medium should comprise within a small bulk a large 
value; in other words, it should be an article of high price; 
if iron were adopted as the money metal, and circulated at 
its current value, it would be necessary to transport a ton 
of this useful substance to discharge a debt of twenty or 
thirty dollars. 

4. As the standard to be universal, must represent the 
measure of the value of all other commodities, small and 
great, it is requisite that it should itself be capable of sub¬ 
division without loss or detriment. All the parts of a di¬ 
vided beaver-skin do not possess the value of the skin entire, 
and a precious stone of large size has a value greatly ex¬ 
ceeding an equal bulk of smaller gems. The value of a cer¬ 
tain portion of gold or silver, on the contrary, is the same, 
whether it consists of large or small pieces. Platinum, al¬ 
though a precious metal, can not be melted in our furnaces, 
and is most valuable when in the form of ingots, from which 
it may be forged into useful forms. In the form of grains, 
or small pieces, its value is diminished, since it can not be 
again united into a large and compact mass, unless sub¬ 
jected to an expensive chemical process. 

5. The nature of the substance must be such, also, that 
its value may easily be verified and determined. 

Finally, that any substance should be universally used as 
a circulating medium, it must unite in itself all these quali¬ 
ties which will cause it to be universally desired for such 
purpose, and these qualities are alone, of all other sub¬ 
stances, possessed in the highest degree by gold and silver. 

A portion of gold or silver possesses a real value in itself, 
which represents the labor employed in producing it; and 
in the form of coin, it represents also a measure of other 



96 ADVANTAGES POSSESSED BY GOLD AND SILVER. 

value, because the value of the coin has been determined by 
the sanction of some authority which all admit; that author¬ 
ity is most conveniently expressed by a government, as the 
representative of the aggregate power of society. The 
metal itself, unless in the shape of coined money, would not 
always represent a definite value; because it might be de¬ 
preciated in value by the mixture of baser or inferior metals, 
unless it bore the impress of authority to determine its 
value. The exchangers of the metal for other articles could 
not without great loss of labor be constantly employed in 
reducing it to the test of value, even if they had the knowl¬ 
edge and skill requisite for so doing. It used to cost a 
thousand pounds a year to the Bank of England for the 
wages of those who weighed the gold coin brought to the 
bank; and it has been estimated that 30,000 sovereigns 
pass over the bank counter daily. A machine is now used 
at the bank, which separates the full weighted coins and the 
light ones, at the rate of 10,000 per hour. In ancient 
Greece, a piece of gold was once stamped with the figure 
of an ox, to indicate that it would exchange for an ox. In 
modern England, a piece of gold called a sovereign, repre¬ 
sents a certain weight in gold uncoined, and the govern¬ 
ment stamp indicates its purity; while the perpetual sepa¬ 
ration of the light sovereigns from those of full weight, 
affords a security that very few light ones are in general 
circulation. A dollar purchases so many pounds’ weight 
of an ox, and a whole ox purchases so many dollars. 
The great use of the coined metal is to save labor in ex¬ 
changing the ox for other commodities. The money pur¬ 
chases the ox, and a portion of the ox again purchases 
some other commodity, such as a loaf of bread from the 
baker, who obtains a portion of the ox through the medium 
of the money, which is the standard by which the value of 
the bread and the beef are compared. 


EXCHANGES IN KIND. 


97 


The great English poetical satirist, Pope, in conducting 
his invective against the private avarice and corruption of 
his day, imagines a state of things in which, money and 
credit being abolished, ministers would bribe and be bribed 
in kind. It is a true picture of what would be universal, if 
the exchanges of men resolved themselves into barter: 

“ A statesman’s slumbers, how the speech would spoil— 

Sir, Spain has sent a thousand jars of oil; 

Huge bales of British cloth blockade the door; 

A hundred oxen at your levee roar.” 

Upon no subject, however, as before stated, has there 
been a greater difference of opinion entertained and ex¬ 
pressed, than in regard to the value and utility of money, 
considered simply as an instrument for developing and 
strengthening the productive forces of society. Many per¬ 
sons find it extremely difficult to conceive how money in 
itself can be invested with any higher value than that which 
naturally belongs to it as an article of industrial or artistic 
utility. The value of an ox, it may be said/is no greater, 
whether we designate the ox as money or as beef; and the 
value of a given portion of gold is the same whether it takes 
the form of a sovereign or ornaments the frame of a look¬ 
ing-glass. Even Adam Smith, in his “Wealth of Nations,” 
tells us “ that the gold and silver money which circulates 
in any country, and by means of which the produce of its 
land and labor is annually circulated and distributed to the 
proper consumers, is all dead stock.” But Adam Smith 
and others who have used these arguments, overlooked the 
great fact, that money is an instrument , or a machine , as 
much so as a ship, a steam-engine, or a newspaper, and so 
far as the development of trade, manufactures, and com¬ 
merce is concerned, more efficacious than either of these 
other instruments or machines. A ship or a steam-engine 


98 


MONEY AN INSTRUMENT 


has a value independent of the value of the materials and 
labor employed in their construction; a value proportioned 
to the labor they can perform, and the necessity which ex¬ 
ists for such labor. During the embargo which preceded 
the war of 1812, American vessels rotted at their wharfs, 
and their value was not equal to the cost of the materials 
Uged in their construction; but during the famine year of 
1847 in Europe, the proceeds of a single voyage of some 
vessels equaled or exceeded their cost. A newspaper which 
sells for a penny in New York, has been afterward sold for 
a dollar at the mines in California; th,e price paid in both 
instances being proportioned to the necessity existing for 
its use, and in the latter case was independent of the actual 
Cost. 

So with money; its value in society is proportioned only 
by the labor it performs, or the office it executes, and as a 
labor-saving machine its relative value in promoting the 
production, consumption, and accumulation of a commu¬ 
nity, is far greater than that performed by either ships or 
steam-engines. The operations of the three are in character 
identical, viz., the removal of obstacles between the producer 
and consumer ; but money has this advantage over the other 
machines, in the fact that a limited amount, after effecting 
more exchanges and economizing more labor for a succes¬ 
sion of years than a great number of ships or steam-engines 
could accomplish, remains entire and nearly unimpaired, 
while the ships and engines are either destroyed by use or 
depreciated in value. 

“ A ship,” says Mr. Carey, “ that has cost forty or fifty 
thousand dollars can not effect exchanges between men on 
the opposite sides of the Atlantic, to an extent exceeding 
five or six thousand tons per annum, whereas a furnace of 
the same cost will effect the transmutation of thirty thousand 
tons weight of coal, ore, limestone, food and clothing into 


FOR SAYING LABOR. 


99 


iron; but the exchanges effected by its aid will not exceed 
the value of a hundred or a hundred and fifty thousand dol¬ 
lars. Let these be compared with the exchanges effected 
in a year by the help of fifty thousand dollars’ worth of 
little white pieces representing labor, to the extent of three 
or five cents, labor which by their help is gathered up in a 
heap, and then divided and subdivided day after day 
throughout the year, and it will be found that the service 
rendered to society in economizing labor, by each dollar’s 
worth of money, is greater than is rendered by hundreds, if 
not thousands, employed in manufactures, or tens of thou¬ 
sands in ships or railroads.” 

To ascertain the relative value of the three great instru¬ 
mentalities employed in effecting exchanges, viz., the ma¬ 
chinery for producing changes in place, in form and in own¬ 
ership, “it is only necessary to calculate the amount of 
exchange performed by a fleet of ships, a collection of rail¬ 
roads, or a city of factories, each of which may have cost 
ten or twenty millions, and then contrast it with the service 
rendered by even a single million of money, constituting 
the basis upon which rests the operations of a community. 
The total amount of the precious metals circulating in the 
six States of New England, can not very greatly exceed a 
million each; but if we take it altogether at ten millions, 
we obtain no more than the cost of a single road like that 
from Boston to Albany, or that of two hundred ships of a 
thousand tons each. With a population of three millions 
of people, the daily exchanges will be put at a very low figure 
if we place them at ten millions, and it would be perhaps 
safe to make the amount much greater; but at that sum the 
exchange would amount to more than three thousand mil¬ 
lions per year, each dollar of which involves as much profit 
and loss to the parties concerned in it, as any of those per¬ 
formed by the help of the rail-road or the ship. Next let us 


100 EFFECTS OF AN ABUNDANCE OF GOLD AND SILVER. 

consider the effect which would result from the withdrawal 
of five of these millions of money from their present employ¬ 
ment, followed as it would be by a paralysis of the industry 
of the whole of these three millions of people, and compare 
with it the effect that would be produced by a fire that 
should at once annihilate fiye millions’ worth of houses and 
merchandize, or a storm which should sink a half dozen 
ocean steamers like the Arctic; and we shall see that of all 
the machinery in use among men, there is none which per¬ 
forms the hundredth part of the service proportioned to 
its cost, that is performed by money. 

“We are told, however, that the only effect of an in¬ 
creased supply of gold and silver is that of‘heightening the 
price of commodities, and obliging every one to pay more 
of those little yellow or white pieces for every thing he pur¬ 
chases.’ Were this really the case, it would be somewhat 
extraordinary to see money always, century after century, 
passing in the same direction to the countries that are rich 
from those that are poor, and so poor that they can not af¬ 
ford to keep as much of it as is necessary for their own ex¬ 
changes. The gold of Siberia leaves a country in which so 
little circulates that labor and its products are at the lowest 
prices, to find its way to St. Petersburg, where it will pur¬ 
chase much less labor, and much less of wheat and hemp; 
but even here it can not stay, and it travels abroad so rap¬ 
idly that the people of Russia are compelled to use paper 
money to enable them to make their exchanges. So it is 
in all countries that export raw produce; and so it must be, 
because it will go to those countries that will buy such prod¬ 
uce, and finish it to be ready for use; and in this latter 
money will be always at a low rate of interest, while its 
owner will be enabled to purchase cheaply clothing and 
other of the conveniences and comforts of life. 

“ Every commodity yielded by nature to man tends to- 


MEXICO, PERU AND CALIFORNIA. 


101 


ward those places at which it has the highest utility, and 
there it is that the labor value of the finished article will be 
found the smallest. Wheat tends toward the grist-mill, and 
there it is that flour is the cheapest. Cotton and wool tend 
toward the mills at which they are to be spun and woven, 
and there it is that the smallest quantity of muscular effort 
will command a yard of cloth. Caoutchouc tends toward 
those places where India rubber shoes are made, and there 
it is that shoes are cheap. On the other hand, it is where 
cotton has the least utility—on the plantation—that cloth 
has its highest value; and therefore it is that we see nations 
so universally prospering, where the spindle and the loom are 
brought to the neighborhood of the plow and the harrow, 
to give utility to their products. 

“ Precisely similar to this are the facts observed in regard 
to the precious metals, which every where tend to those 
places where they have the highest utility—those at which 
men are most able to combine their efforts for rendering 
available all the raw products of the earth—those in which 
the value of land is high, and interest for the use of money 
low. They tend to leave those places in which their utility 
is least, and in which combination of action least exists— 
those in which the price of land is low, and the rate of in¬ 
terest high. 

“If we compare Mexico, Peru, California, or Siberia, where 
gold or silver is produced most abundantly, but where money 
is scarce, interest high, land of little value, and but little 
combination of action present to give utility to their metal¬ 
lic products with England, where the reverse of all these 
innumerable circumstances exists, we shall see that an in¬ 
crease in the supply of money, so far from causing men to 
give two pieces for an article that before could have been 
had for one, has, on the contrary, the effect of enabling them 


102 


TRUE OFFICES OF MONEY. 


to obtain for one piece the commodity that before had cost 
them two. 

“ Experience teaches every man that when money, the 
machine by the help of which exchanges are made from hand 
to hand, circulates freely, he becomes more prosperous from 
day to day, whereas when it is scarce and circulates slowly, 
he becomes less prosperous. It is not capital that is needed, 
but money, the machine by the help of which the products of 
labor and capital are kept in motion, and without which they 
can not move, except in the fashion of primitive times, when 
skins were traded for knives and cloth. The actual capital 
of the United States, in houses, lands, factories, furnaces, 
mines, ships, roads, canals, and other similar property, has 
increased within the last three years to the extent of at least 
a thousand millions of dollars; yet we see every where rail¬ 
roads half finished, and unlikely soon to be finished, although 
laborers are seeking employment; mills likely to be stopped 
for want of demand for their products; laborers unable to 
sell their labor, and men of business every where compelled 
to curtail their operations because of the difficulty experi¬ 
enced in collecting their debts. Why is this so ? Not, cer¬ 
tainly, because of any diminution of capital, for that is greater 
than it has ever been, but from the want of the machinery 
with which to move capital and labor—money. This money 
now leaves the United States, and collects in Europe. 

“Money, therefore, takes its place, as one of the great in¬ 
struments of progress and civilization, side by side with the 
ship, the steam-engine, the printing-press, and the power- 
loom. Its duties are, however, less specific than those of all 
other machines, and its adaptation to purposes of utility 
more manifold and various. Capable of minute subdivision 
without detriment to itself, it purchases alike the food of the 
humble laboror, and the products of empires; it is the in¬ 
strument of secret charity, and of ostentatious munificence; 


TRUE OFFICES OF MONEY. 


103 


the agent of religious efforts, and the founder of States. It 
bids commerce spread its sail on every ocean, arms and en¬ 
courages enterprise to combat and make subservient the 
elements of nature, concentrates and combines the forces of 
industry, and makes free the blessings of education. ‘ Mo¬ 
ney is to society, what fuel is to the locomotive, or food 
to the animal, the producer of motion—whence results 
power.’ Deprive the one of fuel, and the combinations of 
machinery become powerless—withhold sustenance from 
the other, and paralysis and death follows. So with money, 
when it circulates freely all the elements of society are in 
motion, production is stimulated, labor is in the ascendant. 
When it is withdrawn from circulation, apathy succeeds ac¬ 
tivity, production is diminished, business stagnates; the 
laborer instead of being the equal is now the slave of 
the capitalist; the rich become richer, and the poor poorer. 
The comparison between the offices sustained by food to 
the body and those of money to society may be carried still 
further. Thus in order that food may give motion and 
produce power, it must be digested and pass gradually 
through a long series of complex organic vessels, by whose 
help it is gradually assimilated and made to yield support 
to the whole system, having done which it passes gradually 
off, in great measure by insensible perspiration. So it is 
with gold and silver. That they may be the cause of mo¬ 
tion and power, it is required that they, too, should be 
digested and pass gradually through the system, some por¬ 
tions to be absorbed and retained, while others pass grad¬ 
ually and almost insensibly off to be applied to the purchase 
of other commodities. In default of this, the supplies of 
California can be of no more service to this country than 
would be supplies of food to a man suffering under dysen¬ 
tery or cholera. The more the latter eats, the more certain 
would be the approach of death; and the more gold that 



104 


TRUE OFFICES OF MONEY. 


comes from California the poorer we shall become under a 
system that drains it from the country, that closes the mills 
and furnaces of the nation, that destroys the power of asso¬ 
ciation—and that causes a demand for exportation of all the 
gold we receive ; for with every step in this direction we are 
increasing the power of other nations to produce cheaply 
both iron and cloth , while diminishing our own. 

“It is by means of association and combination of effort 
that man advances in civilization. Association brings into 
activity all the various powers, mental and physical, of the 
beings of which society is composed, and thus it is seen 
that individuality grows every where with the growth of 
combination. Association enables the many who are weak 
and poor, to triumph over the few that are rich and strong, 
and thus it is that we see man becoming more free with 
every advance in wealth and population. To enable man 
to associate, there is required an instrument, by the help of 
which the process of composition, decomposition, and re¬ 
composition of the various forces may readily be effected, 
so that while all unite to produce the effect desired, each 
may have his share of the benefits thence resulting. That 
instrument was furnished hi those metals which stand 
almost alone in the fact that, as Minerva sprang fully armed 
from the head of Jove; they, whenever found, come forth 
ready, requiring no elaboration, no alteration to fit them 
for the great work for which they were intended, that of 
enabling men to combine their efforts for attaining the 
highest degree of civilization and progress. Of all the in¬ 
struments at the command of men, there are none that tend 
in so large a degree to promote individuality on the one 
hand and association on the other, as do gold and silver— 
properly therefore denominated, the precious metals.”* 


* Henry 0. Carey. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


IMPORTANCE OF CAPITAL TO THE PROFITABLE EMPLOYMENT OF LABOR.—CONTRAST 
BETWEEN THE PRODIGAL AND THE PRUDENT MAN : THE DUKES OF BUCKINGHAM 
AND BRIDGEWATER.—MAKING GOOD FOR TRADE.—UNPROFITABLE CONSUMPTION. 
—WAR AGAINST CAPITAL IN THE MIDDLE AGES.—EVILS OF CORPORATE PRIVILEGES. 
-CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE UNDER HENRY VIII. 


But whatever difference of opinion may be entertained in 
respect to the relation which money sustains to the various 
productive forces of every civilized society, we think our 
readers will willingly yield their assent to the conclusion 
which we have endeavored to illustrate, namely, that accu¬ 
mulation, or capital, is absolutely essential to the profitable 
employment of labor; and that the greater the accumula¬ 
tion the greater the extent of that profitable employment. 
This truth, however, has been denied altogether by some 
speculative writers; and, what is more important, has been 
practically denied by the conduct of nations and individuals 
in the earlier stages of society; and is still denied by existing 
prejudices, derived from the current maxims of former days 
of ignorance and half-knowledge. With the speculative 
writers we have little to do. When Rousseau, for instance, 
advises governments not to secure property to its possess¬ 
ors, but to deprive them of all means of accumulating, it is 
sufficient to know that the same writer advocated the sav 
age state, in which there should be no property, in prefer¬ 
ence to the social, which is founded on appropriation. 
Knowing this, and being convinced that the savage state, 
even with imperfect appropriation, is one of extreme wretch* 

5* 


106 


TELE PRODIGAL AND THE PRUDENT MAN. 


edness, we may safely leave such opinions to work their own 
cure. For it is not likely that any individual, however dis¬ 
posed to think that accumulation is an evil, would desire, by 
destroying accumulation, to pass into the condition described 
by John Tanner, of a constant encounter with hunger in its 
most terrific forms: and seeing, therefore, the fallacy of 
such an opinion, he will also see that, if he partially de¬ 
stroys accumulation, he equally impedes production, and 
equally destroys his share in the productive power of capi¬ 
tal and labor working together for a common good in the 
social state. 

But, without going the length of wishing to destroy 
capital, there are many who think that accumulation is a 
positive evil, and that consumption is a positive benefit.; 
and, therefore, that economy is an evil, and waste a benefit. 
The course of a prodigal man is by many still viewed with 
considerable admiration. He sits up all night in frantic 
riot; he consumes whatever can stimulate his satiated appe¬ 
tite ; he is waited upon by a crowd of unproductive and 
equally riotous retainers; he breaks and destroys every 
thing around him with an unsparing hand; he rides his 
horses to death in the most extravagant attempts to wres¬ 
tle with time and space; and when he has spent all his sub¬ 
stance in these excesses, and dies an outcast and a beggar, 
he is said to have been a hearty fellow, and to have “ made 
good for trade.” When, on the contrary, a man of fortune 
economizes his revenue—lives like a virtuous and reasonable 
being, wdiose first duty is the cultivation of his understand¬ 
ing—eats and drinks with regard to his health—keeps no 
more retainers than are sufficient for his proper comfort and 
decency—breaks and destroys nothings—has respect to the 
inferior animals, as well from motives of prudence as of 
mercy—and dies without a mortgage on his lands; he is 
said to have been a stingy fellow who did not know how 


DUKES OF BUCKINGHAM AND BRIDGEWATER. 107 

to “ circulate his money.” To “ circulate money,” to 
“ make good for trade,” in the once common meaning of 
the terms, is for one to consume unprofitably what, if econ¬ 
omized, would have stimulated production in a way that 
would Have enabled hundreds , instead of one, to consume 
profitably. Let us offer two historical examples of these 
two opposite modes of making good for trade, and circulat¬ 
ing money. The English Duke of Buckingham, having 
been possessed of an income of about two hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars a-year, died in 1687, in a remote inn in 
Yorkshire, reduced to the utmost misery. After a life of 
the most wanton riot, which exhausted all bis princely re¬ 
sources, he was left at the last hour, under circumstances 
which are well described in the following lines by Pope: 

“ In the worst inn’s worst room, with mat half hung, 

The floors of plaster, and the walls of dung, 

On once a flock bed, but repair’d with straw, 

With tape-tied curtains never meant to draw, 

The George and Garter dangling from that bed 
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red ; 

Great Yilliers lies. * * * * 

No wit to flatter, left of all his store, 

No fool to laugh at, which he valued more, 

There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends, 

And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends.” 

Contrast the course of this unhappy man with that of the 
Duke of Bridgewater, who devoted his property to really 
“ making good for trade,” by constructing the great canals 
which connect Manchester with the coal countries and with 
Liverpool. The Duke of Buckingham lived in a round of 
sensual folly: the Duke of Bridgewater limited his personal 
expenditure to two thousand dollars a-year, and devoted all 
the remaining portion of his revenues to the construction 
of a magnificent work of the highest public utility. The 



108 ♦ “ MAKING GOOD FOR TRADE.” 

one supported a train of cooks and valets and horse-jockeys; 
the other called into action the labor of thousands, and em¬ 
ployed in the direction of that labor the skill of Brindley, 
one of the greatest engineers that any country has pro¬ 
duced. The one died without a penny, loaded with debt, 
leaving no trace behind him but the ruin which his waste 
had produced: the other bequeathed almost the largest 
property in Europe to his descendants, and opened a chan¬ 
nel for industry which afforded, and still affords, employ¬ 
ment to thousands. 

When a mob amused themselves by breaking windows, 
as was once a common recreation in England on an illumi¬ 
nation night, by way of showing the amount of popular in¬ 
telligence, some were apt to say they have “ made good for 
trade.” 

Is it not evident that the capital which was represented 
by the unbroken windows was really so much destroyed of 
the national riches when the windows were broken ? for if 
the windows had remained unbroken, the capital would 
have remained to stimulate the production of some new ob¬ 
ject of utility. The glaziers, indeed, replaced the windows; 
but there having been a destruction of windows, there must 
have been a necessary retrenchment in some other outlay 
that would have afforded benefit to the consumer. Doubt¬ 
less, when the glazier is called into activity by a mob break¬ 
ing windows, some other trade suffers; for the man who 
has to pay for the broken windows must retrench some¬ 
where ; and if he has less to lay out, some other person has 
also less to lay out. The glass-maker, probably, makes more 
glass at the moment, but he does so to exchange with the 
capital that would otherwise have gone to the maker of 
clothes or of furniture; and there being an absolute destruc¬ 
tion of the funds for the maintenance of labor by an unnec¬ 
essary destruction of what former labor has produced, trade 


PRODIGALITY AND ECONOMY. 


109 


generally is injured to the extent of the destruction. Some 
now say that a fire makes good for trade. The only differ¬ 
ence of evil between the fire which destroys a house and the 
mob which breaks the windows is, that the fire absorbs cap¬ 
ital for the maintenance of trade or labor in the proportion 
of a hundred to one when compared with the mob. Some 
say that war makes good for trade. The only difference of 
pecuniary evil (the moral evils admit of no comparison) be¬ 
tween the fire and the war is, that the war absorbs capital 
for the maintenance of trade or labor in the proportion of a 
million to a hundred, when compared with the fire. If the 
incessant energy of production were constantly repressed by 
mobs, and fires, and wars, the end would be that consump¬ 
tion would altogether exceed production; and finally the 
producers and the consumers would both be starved into 
wiser courses, and perceive that nothing makes good for 
trade but profitable industry and judicious expenditure. 
Prodigality devotes itself too much to the satisfaction of 
present wants; avarice postpones too much the present 
wants to the possible wants of the future. Real economy 
is the happy measure between the two extremes; and that 
only “ makes good for trade,” because, while it carries on a 
steady demand for industry, it accumulates a portion of the 
production of a country to stimulate new production. That 
judicious expenditure consists in 

“ The sense to value riches, with the art 
T’ enjoy them. 5 ’ 

Lessing, in one of his Eastern fables, thus pleasantly illus¬ 
trates the folly of continued accumulation, without properly 
enjoying it. “It was a sultry day, and an avaricious old man 
who had hoarded a large amount was toiling away and wast¬ 
ing his little remaining strength, when a heavenly apparition 
stood before him; ‘I am Solomon,’ it said, with a friendly 


110 


UNPROFITABLE CONSUMPTION. 


voice; c what are you doing ?’ ‘ If you are Solomon,’ an¬ 

swered the old man, ‘how can you ask? When I was 
young, you sent me to the ant, and told me to consider her 
ways; and from her I learned to be industrious and gather 
stores.’ ‘You have only half learned your lesson,’ said the* 
spirit; ‘ go once more to the ant, and learn to rest the win¬ 
ter of your years and enjoy your collected treasures.’ ” 

The fashion of “ making good for trade” by unprofitable 
consumption is a relic of the barbarous ages. In the twelfth 
century a count of France commanded his vassals to plow 
up the soil round his castle, and he sowed the ground with 
coins of gold to the amount of fifteen hundred guineas, that 
he might have all men talk of his magnificence. Piqued at 
the lordly prodigality of his neighbor, another noble ordered 
thirty of his most valuable horses to be tied to a stake and 
burned alive, that he might exhibit a more striking instance 
of contempt for accumulation. In the latter part of the 
fourteenth century, a Scotch noble, Colin Campbell, on re¬ 
ceiving a visit from the O’lSTeiles of Ireland, ostentatiously 
burned down his house at Inverary upon their departure; and 
an Earl of Athol pursued the same course in 1528, after hav¬ 
ing entertained the papal legate, upon the pretense that it 
was “ the constant habitude of the Highlanders to set on 
fire in the morning the place which had lodged them the 
night before.” When the feudal lords had so little respect 
for their own property, it was not likely that they would 
have much regard for the accumulation of others. The 
Jews, who were the great capitalists of the middle ages, 
and who really merit the gratitude of Europeans for their 
avarice, as that almost alone enabled any accumulation to 
go forward, and any production to increase, w T ere, as it is 
well known, persecuted in every direction by the crown, by 
the nobles, by the people. When a solitary farmer or abbot 
attempted to accumulate corn, which accumulation could 


THE HOCK-CART. 


Ill 


alone prevent the dreadful famines invariably resulting from 
having no stock that might be available upon a bad harvest, 
the people burnt the ricks of the provident men, by way of 
lessening the evils of scarcity. The consequence was, that 
no person thought of accumulating at all, and that the price 
of wheat often rose just before the harvest from five shillings 
a quarter to one hundred shillings. 



THE HOCK-CART. 


We are accustomed to read and talk of “ merry England,” 
but we sometimes fail to think how much real suffering lay 
beneath the surface of the merriment. Herrick, one of En¬ 
gland’s charming old lyric poets, has sung the glories of the 



112 THE HOCK-CAET-WAR AGAINST CAPITAL. 

hook-cart—the cart that bore the full sheaves to the empty 
barn: 

The harvest swains and wenches bound 
For joy, to see the hock-cart crowned: 

About the cart hear how the rout 
Of rural younglings raise the shout, 

Pressing before, some coming after, 

These with a shout, and those with laughter. 

Some bless the cart, some kiss the sheaves, 

Some prank them up with oaken leaves; 

Some cross the fill-horse, some with great 
Devotion stroke the home-borne wheat.” 

Assuredly there was joy and there was devotion; for the 
laden cart made the difference between plenty and starva¬ 
tion. Before that harvest-home came there had been many 
an aching heart in the village hovels, for there was no store 
to equalize prices, and no communication to make the abund¬ 
ance of one district, much less of one country, mitigate the 
scarcity of another. It was not a question of the rise or the 
fall of a penny or two in the price of a loaf of bread, it was 
a question of bread or no bread. 

During these dark periods the crown carried on the war 
against capital with an industry that could not be exceeded 
by that of the nobles or the people. Before the great char¬ 
ter the Commons complained that King Henry seized upon 
whatever was suited to his royal pleasure—horses, imple¬ 
ments, food, any thing that presented itself in the shape of 
accumulated labor. In the reign of Henry III., a statute 
was passed to remedy excessive distresses; from which it 
appeared that it was no unfrequent practice for the king’s 
officers to take the opportunity of seizing the farmer’s oxen 
at the moment when they were employed in plowing, or as 
the statute says, “winning the earth”—taking them off, and 
starving them to death, or only restoring them with new 
and enormous exactions for their keep. Previous to the 


WAR AGAINST CAPITAL. 


113 


Charter of the Forest no man could dig a marl-pit on his 
own ground, lest the king’s horses should fall into it when 
he was hunting. As late as the time of James I., we find, 
from a speech of the great Lord Bacon, that it was a pretty 
constant practice of the king’s purveyors to extort large 
sums of money by threatening to cut down favorite trees 
which grew near a mansion-house or in avenues. Despot¬ 
ism, in all ages, has depopulated the finest countries, by 
rendering capital insecure, and therefore unproductive; in¬ 
somuch that Montesquieu lays it down as a maxim, that 
lands are not cultivated in proportion to their fertility, but 
in proportion to their freedom. In the fifteenth century, in 
England, we find sums of money voted for the restoration 
of decayed towms and villages. Just laws would have re¬ 
stored them much more quickly and effectually. The state 
of agriculture was so low that the most absurd enactments 
were made to compel farmers to till and sow their own 
lands, and calling upon every man to plant at least forty 
beans. All the laws for the regulation of laborers, at the 
same period, assumed that they should be compelled to 
work, and not wander about the country—-just in the same 
way that farmers should be compelled to sow and till. It 
is perfectly clear that the towns would not have been de¬ 
populated, and gone to decay, if the accumulation of capital 
had not been obstructed by insecurity and wasted by ignor¬ 
ance, and that the same insecurity and the same waste ren¬ 
dered it necessary to assume that the farmer would not till 
and sow, and the laborer would not labor, without compul¬ 
sion. The natural stimulus to industry was wanting, and 
therefore there was no industry, or only unprofitable in¬ 
dustry. The towns decayed, the country was unculti¬ 
vated—production languished—the people were all poor 
and wretched; and the government dreamed that acts of 
parliament and royal ordinances could rebuild the houses 


114 


WAR AGAINST CAPITAL. 


and cultivate the land, when the means of building and cul¬ 
tivation, namely, the capital of the country, was exhausted 
by injustice producing insecurity. 

But if the king, the nobles, and the people of the middle 
ages conspired together, or acted at least as if they con¬ 
spired, to prevent the accumulation of capital, the few capi¬ 
talists themselves, by their monstrous regulations, which 
still throw some dark shadows over our own days, pre¬ 
vented that freedom of industry without which capital 
could not accumulate. Undoubtedly the commercial privi¬ 
leges of corporations originally offered some barriers against 
the injustice of the crown and of the nobility : but the good 
was always accompanied with an evil, which rendered it to 
a certain extent valueless. Where these privileges gave 
security, they were a good; where they destroyed free¬ 
dom, they were an injury. Instead of encouraging the in¬ 
tercourse between one trade and another, they encircled 
every trade with the most absurd monopolies and exclusive 
privileges. Instead of rendering commerce free between 
one district and another, they, even in the same country, 
encompassed commerce with the most harrassing restric¬ 
tions, which separated county from county, and town from 
town, as if seas ran between them. If a man of Coventry 
came to London with his wares, he was encountered at 
every step with the privileges of companies; if the man of 
London sought to trade at Coventry, he was obstructed by 
the same corporate rights, preventing either the Londoner 
or the Coventryman trading with advantage.* The revenues 

* These restrictions upon trade and the free practice of a profession 
continued in force throughout Great Britain, down to a very recent 
period. In the life of James Watt, who rendered such essential service 
to the world by his improvements in the_ steam-engine, we have an illus¬ 
tration, drawn from his own experience, of the nature of the restrictions, 
oppressive enactments, and usages, affecting apprentices and others as 


WAR AGAINST CAPITAL. 


115 


of every city were derived from forfeitures of trades, almost 
all established upon the principle, that if one trade became 
too industrious, or too clever, it would be the ruin of an¬ 
other trade. Every trade was accordingly fenced round 
with secrets; and the commonest trade, as we know from the 
language of an apprentice’s indenture, was called an “ art 
and mystery.” All over western Europe were the appren- 

they existed in Great Britain less than a century ago. "Watt, in 1756, 
commenced life in the employ of an instrument-maker in the city of Lon¬ 
don. After describing the skill and aptitude manifested by him for the 
profession he had chosen, his biographer goes on to say. “An unex¬ 
pected danger at that time hung over his destiny, which might have cut 
short a least for a time, his prospects for further improvement in natural 
science, and postponed all his plans with their important consequences. 
This sword of Damocles was the chance of being impressed in the navy 
as a seaman. Watt writes in the spring of 1756, “that he avoids a very 
hot press just now by seldom going out,” and at a later day he adds, 
“they now press every body they can get, landsmen as well as seamen, 
except it be in the liberties of the city, where they are obliged to carry 
them before my Lord Mayor first, and unless one be a creditable trades¬ 
man or a ’prentice, there is scarce any chance of getting off again. And 
if I am carried before my Lord Mayor, I durst never avow I wrought in 
the city, it being against their laws for any unfree man to work, even as 
a journeyman, within the liberties.” Subsequently, Watt having com¬ 
pleted his term of service with the instrument-maker, and escaped im¬ 
pressment in the navy, removed to Glasgow, Scotland, with the inten¬ 
tion of following his profession. No sooner, however, had he manifested 
his intention of so doing, than the association of workmen forbid him 
“the exercise of his craft” in that city. “On account,” says his biogra¬ 
pher, “ of his being neither the son of a burgess, nor having served a reg¬ 
ular apprenticeship to any craft, he was resisted by tradesmen of arrogant 
and far more unfounded pretensions than the modest youth whom they 
persecuted with a sort of temporal excommunication ; and was forbidden 
to set up even an humble shop, himself the sole tenant, within the limits 
of the burgh. He was only, in short, enabled to pursue his calling in 
Glasgow, by opening a shop within the precincts of the college, and using 
the designation “ Instrument-maker to the University of Glasgow.” 


116 


WAR AGAINST CAPITAL. 


tices and journeymen taxed and ground down by arbitrary 
laws before they reached the dignity of freemen. Every 
man who had suffered these taxes, and submitted to these 
laws, was not willing to give up privileges so dearly bought, 
so that working-men who had attained to a free member¬ 
ship, in turn became the supporters of the very regulations 
that were once to them so oppressive. “ In Paris,” says a 
late writer, “before a man could become a freeman of a 
corporation, he must have produced a chef-d'oeuvre. Thus, 
no obnoxious journeyman was ever held to have produced 
one; and so he was kept without the privileged pale. The 
freedom of a corporation became a heir-loom in certain fam¬ 
ilies. The freemen heaped all kinds of rights and privileges 
upon themselves, to the disadvantage of workmen who did 
not happen to be their relations or friends. The merchants 
were banded in like manner. Constant broils and lawsuits 
arose between rival corporations—as between the tailors 
and the second-hand clothesmen—and a grave discussion 
settled the line of demarcation between a new coat and an 
old one. A locksmith dared not make the nails, neces¬ 
sary to the completion of his locks, because the manufacture 
of nails belonged to another corporation.” All these follies 
went upon the presumption that “ one man’s gain is another 
man’s loss,” instead of vanishing before the truth, that, in 
proportion as the industry of all men is free, so will it be 
productive; and that production on all sides insures a state 
of things in which every exchanger is a gainer, and no one 
a loser. 

It is not to be wondered at that, while such opinions 
existed, the union of capital and labor should have been 
very imperfect; and that, while the capitalists oppressed 
the laborers, in the same way that they oppressed each 
other, the laborers should have thought it not unreasonable 
to plunder the capitalists. It is stated by Harrison, an old 


THIEVES AND GIPSIES. 11Y 

writer of credit,* that during the single reign of Henry 
VIII., seventy-two thousand thieves were hanged in En¬ 
gland. No fact can exhibit in a stronger light the universal 
misery that must have existed in those days. The wdiole 
kingdom did not contain half a million grown-up males, so 
that, considering that the reign of Henry VIII. extended 
over two generations, about one man in ten must have 
been, to use the words of the same historian, “ devoured 
and eaten up by the gallows.”f Numerous other facts 
might be adduced, all tending to show the barbarity and 
cruelty of this period, and the utter indifference evinced by 
the government toward the lives as well as the property of 
its subjects. We read, for instance, of the execution of a 
Warwickshire squire, for using a coarse expression, which 
was erroneously said to have been applied to the king, and 
an innkeeper was hanged for the harmless pleasantry of 
saying, that he would make his son heir to the “ Crown,” 
which was the sign of his house. In the reign of Henry 
VIII. also, the first statute against Egyptians (gypsies) was 
passed. These people went from place to place in great 
companies—spoke a cant language, which Harrison calls 
Peddler’s French—and were subdivided into fifty-two differ¬ 
ent classes- of thieves. The same race of people prevailed 
throughout Europe. Cervantes, the author of “ Don Quix¬ 
ote,” says of the Egyptians or Bohemians, that they seem 
to have been born for no other purpose than that of pillag¬ 
ing. While this universal plunder went forward, it is evi¬ 
dent that the insecurity of property must have been so great 
that there could have been little accumulation,, and therefore 
little production. Capital was destroyed on every side; 

« Preface to the Chronicles of Holinshed. 

f A distinguished American theologian and reformer expressed a senti¬ 
ment somewhat similar, when he described u hanging as the worst possi¬ 
ble use to which a man could be put ” 


118 


UNIVERSAL PLUNDER. 


and because profitable labor had become so scarce by the 
destruction of capital, one half of the community sought to 
possess themselves of the few goods of the other half, not 
as exchangers, but as robbers. As the robbers diminished 
the capital, the diminution of cajfital increased the number 
of robbers; and if the unconquerable energy of human 
industry had not gone on producing, slowly and painfully 
indeed, but still producing, England would have soon fallen 
back to the state in which it was a thousand years before, 
when wolves abounded more than men. One great cause 
of all this plunder and misery was the oppression of the 
laborers. 



DR. ADAM SMITH. 


CHAPTER IX. 


RIGHTS OF LABOR.—EFFECTS OF SLAVERY ON PRODUCTION.—CONDITION OF THE 
ANGLO-SAXONS.—PROGRESS OF FREEDOM IN ENGLAND.—LAWS REGULATING LA¬ 
BOR.—WAGES AND PRICES.—POOR-LAW. 

Adam Smith, in his great work, “The Wealth of Na¬ 
tions,” says, “ The property which every man has in his 
own labor, as it is the original foundation of all other prop¬ 
erty, so it is the most sacred and inviolable. The patrimony 
of a poor man lies in the strength and dexterity of his hands; 
and to hinder him from employing this strength and dexter¬ 
ity in what manner he thinks proper, without injury to his 
neighbor, is a plain violation of this most sacred property.” 
The right of property, in general, has been defined by an¬ 
other writer, M. Say, to be u the exclusive faculty guaran- 



120 


RIGHTS OF LABOR. 


tied to a man, or body of men, to dispose, at their own 
pleasure, of that which belongs to them.” There can be no 
doubt that labor is entitled to the same protection as a 
property that capital is entitled to. There can be no doubt 
that the laborer has rights over his labor which no govern¬ 
ment and no individual should presume to interfere with. 
There can be no doubt that, as an exchanger of labor for 
capital, the laborer ought to be assured that the exchange 
shall in all respects be as free as the exchanges of any other 
description of property. His rights as an exchanger are, 
that he shall not be compelled to part with his property, by 
any arbitrary enactments, without having as ample an 
equivalent as the general laws of exchange will afford him ; 
that he shall be free to use every just means, either by him¬ 
self or by union with others, to obtain such an equivalent; 
that he shall be at full hberty to offer that property in the 
best market that he can find, without being limited to any 
particular market; that he may give to that property every 
modification which it is capable of receiving from his own 
natural or acquired skill, without being narrowed to any 
one form of producing it. In other words, natural justice 
demands that the working-man shall work when he please, 
and be idle when he please, always providing that, if he 
make a contract to work, he shall not violate that engage¬ 
ment by remaining idle ; that no labor shall be forced from 
him, and no rate of payment for that labor be prescribed by 
statutes or ordinances; that he shall be free to obtain as 
high wages as he can possibly get, and unite w r ith others to 
obtain them, always providing that in his union he does not 
violate that freedom of industry in others which is the found¬ 
ation of his own attempts to improve his condition; that 
he may go from place to place to exchange his labor with¬ 
out being interfered with by corporate rights or monopolies 
of any sort, whether of masters or workmen; and that he 


TRANSITION FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM. 


121 


may turn from one employment to the other, if he so think 
fit, without being confined to the trade he originally learned, 
or may strike into any line of employment without having 
regularly learned it at all. When the workingman has 
these rights secured to him by the sanction of the laws, and 
the concurrence of the institutions and customs of the coun¬ 
try in which he lives, he is in the condition of a free ex¬ 
changer. He has the full, uninterrupted, absolute posses¬ 
sion of his property. He is upon a perfect legal equality 
with the capitalist. He may labor cheerfully with the well- 
founded assurance that his labor will be profitably exchanged 
for the goods which he desires for the satisfaction of his 
wants, as far as laws and institutions can so provide. In a 
word, he may assure himself that, if he possesses any thing 
valuable to offer in exchange for capital, the capital will not 
be fenced round with any artificial barriers, or invested with 
any unnatural preponderance, to prevent the exchange being 
one of perfect equality, and therefore a real benefit to both 
exchangers. 

In the free States of the American Union and in England, 
the relations and the mutual dependence of labor and capi¬ 
tal are well understood, and the natural rights pertaining 
to both are. guarantied, not so much by legislative enact¬ 
ments, as by the education and discernment of the people. 
Indeed, in both countries there are scarcely any legal re¬ 
strictions in force, which prevent the exchange of labor 
with capital from being completely free and unembarrassed. 
It is true, that some of the most absurd and tyrannical laws 
regulating labor and personal rights ever enacted in En¬ 
gland, still remain unrepealed upon her statute-book, but 
they are regarded for the most part as obsolete ;* and to 

* As examples of these laws, the following may be noted: The law 
giving to the Grown all treasure or valuable ornaments of antiquity found 
in the United Kingdom; the law giving to the Lord Warden (a mere hon- 

6 


122 TRANSITION FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM. 

our discredit it may also be said, that the spirit of intoler¬ 
ance occasionally manifests itself in this particular at the 
present day, in some of the most enlightened of the Ameri¬ 
can States. We have a recent example of this in the law 
which has been proposed in Massachusetts and some other 
States, restricting the hours of labor, and making it impera¬ 
tive that the capitalist shall not require the services of the 
operative to regulate his machinery more than ten hours 
per diem. In a country like the United States, where labor 
is in demand, and the operative is free to exchange his labor 
wherever, and according to whatever contract he pleases, 
such a law is a violation of the rights of both laborer and 
capitalist, and is worthy of a place in the English “ Statute 
of Laborers” of the fourteenth century, which proscribed 
what the laborer should eat, drink, and wear, the wages 
he should receive, and the places in which he should labor. 

Yet, notwithstanding the freedom and general recogni¬ 
tion of the rights of labor which at present so distinguishes 
the civil and political condition of England and the United 
States, it must be remembered that it is only within a few 

orary office) of the Cinque Ports (five sea-ports on the Southern coast) a 
right to all articles reclaimed from the sea; and lastly, a law enacted in 
the time of George III., prohibiting the use of other than metal buttons 
on garments, and punishing tailors for the infringement by the forfeiture 
of the price of the garment, and a fine for each button so used. The ob¬ 
ject of this law was to protect the metallic button-makers of Birmingham, 
to the detriment of others who might manufacture buttons of wood, cloth, 
or other substances. We have especially cited these laws, from the fact 
that each one of them has been recently enforced. The enforcement of 
the first is a common occurrence; by virtue of the second, Lord Welling¬ 
ton, some years since, claimed and secured the value of a dead whale 
which was found and towed into the harbor of Dover, by certain fisher¬ 
men ; while the third was successfully taken advantage of by a knavish 
debtor in one of the London courts against a prosecuting tailor creditor, 
during the year 1854. 


EFFECTS OF SLAVERY ON PRODUCTION. 


123 


centuries that our ancestors, the working men of England, 
have emerged from the condition of actual slaves into that 
of free laborers; it is only a few hundred years ago since 
the cultivator of the ground, the domestic servant, and 
sometimes even the artisan, was the absolute property of 
another man—bought, sold, let, without any will of his own, 
like an ox or a horse—producing nothing for himself—and 
transmitting the miseries of his lot to his children. The 
progress of civilization destroyed this monstrous system, in 
the same way that at the present day it is destroying it in 
Russia and other countries where slavery still exists. But 
it was by a very slow process that the English slave went 
forward to the complete enjoyment of the legal rights of a 
free exchanger. The transition exhibits very many years 
of gross injustice, of bitter suffering, of absurd and ineffect¬ 
ual violations of the natural rights of man; and of struggles 
between the capitalist and the laborer, for exclusive advan¬ 
tages, perpetuated by ignorant lawgivers, who could not 
see that the interest of all classes of producers is one and 
the same. We may not improperly devote a little space to 
the description of this dark and evil period. We shall see 
that while such a struggle goes forward—that is, while 
security of property and freedom of industry are not held 
as the interchangeable rights of the capitalist and the 
laborer—there can be little production and less accumula¬ 
tion. Wherever positive slavery exists—wherever the la¬ 
borers are utterly deprived of their property in their labor, 
and are compelled to dispose of it without retaining any 
part of the character of voluntary exchangers—there are 
found idleness, ignorance, and unskillfulness; industry is en¬ 
feebled—the oppressor and the oppressed are both poor— 
there is no national accumulation. The existence of slavery 
among the nations of antiquity was a great impediment to 
their progress in the arts of life. The community, in such 


124 


EFFECTS OF SLAVERY ON PRODUCTION. 


nations, was divided into a caste of nobles called citizens, 
and a caste of laborers called slaves. The Romans were 
rich, in the common sense of the word, because they plun¬ 
dered other nations; but they could not produce largely 
when the individual spirit to industry was wanting. The 
industry of the freemen was rapine; the slaves were the 
producers. No man will work willingly when he is to be 
utterly deprived of the power of disposing at his own will 
of the fruits of his labor; no man will work skillfully when 
the same scanty pittance is doled out to each and all, what¬ 
ever be the difference in their talents and knowledge. 
Wherever the freedom of industry is thus violated, prop¬ 
erty can not be secure. If Rome had encouraged free 
laborers, instead of breeding menial slaves, it could not 
have happened that the thieves, who were constantly hov¬ 
ering round the suburbs of the city, like vultures looking 
out for carrion, should have been so numerous that, during 
the insurrection of Catiline, they formed a large accession 
to his army. But Rome had to encounter a worse evil than 
that of the swarms of highwaymen who were ready to 
plunder whatever had been produced. Production itself 
was so feeble when carried on by the labor of slaves, that 
Columella, a writer on rural affairs, says the crops continued 
so gradually to fall off that there was a general opinion that 
the earth was growing old and losing its power of product¬ 
iveness. Wherever slavery exists at the present day, there 
we find feeble production and national weakness. Poland, 
the most prolific corn-country in Europe, is unquestionably 
.the poorest country. Poland has been partitioned, over and 
over again, by governments that knew her weakness ; and 
she has been said to have fallen “ without a crime.” That 
is not correct. Her “crime” was, and is, the slavery of her 
laborers. There is no powerful class between the noble and 
the serf or slave; and while this state of things endures. 


EFFECTS OF SLAVERY ON PRODUCTION. 


125 


Poland can never be independent, because she can never be 
industrious, and therefore never wealthy. 

The blighting effects of a system of slavery on the de¬ 
velopment and progress of a State is also strikingly exhib¬ 
ited in our own country, by contrasting the statistical re¬ 
turns of the free and slave States. Let us take for example 
the four great States of New York, Ohio, Virginia, and 
South Carolina, possessing respectively the following territo¬ 
rial areas: New York, 19,000,000 of acres; Ohio, 17,'000,000; 
Virginia, 26,000,000 ; South Carolina 16,000,000. 

The unequal progress of these several States in popula¬ 
tion during the last 60 years is shown in the following 
table: 



Pop. in 
1790. 

Pop. in 
1810. 

Pop. in 
1820. 

Pop. in 
1830. 

Pop. in 
1840. 

Pop. in 
1850. 

New York. 

340,000 

959,000 

1,372,000 

1,918,000 

2,428,000 

3,097,000 

Ohio. 

unsettled. 

230,000 

381,000 

937,000 

1,519,000 

1,980,000 

Virginia. 

748,000 

974,000 

1,065,000 

1,211,000 

1,239,000 

1,421,000 

South Carolina. 

249,000 

415,000 

502,000 

581,000 

594,000 

668,000 

1 


The average value of land in these States is as follows : 
in New York, twenty-nine dollars per acre; Ohio, nine¬ 
teen dollars per acre; Virginia, eight dollars per acre; 
South Carolina, five dollars per acre. In New York, two 
thirds of the land is improved; in Ohio, more than one half; 
in Virginia, two fifths; in South Carolina, one fourth. In 
New York, 1 native-born person in every 520 of the 
whole populatation is a pauper; in Ohio, 1 in 1579; in 
Virginia, 1 in 326 ; in South Carolina, 1 in every 600. In 
New York, the number of inhabitants to the square mile is 
67 ; in Ohio, 49 ; in Virginia, 23; in South Carolina, 27. 
In 1850, New York had 1 mile of rail-road for every 24 
square miles of territory ; Ohio, 1 for every 48 ; Virginia, 
1 for every 127; South Carolina, 1 for every 70. These 














126 


THE ANGLO-SAXONS. 


comparisons could be extended to various other subjects, 
with similar results ; enough, however, has been deduced to 
prove the disastrous effect of a system of involuntary 
labor, considered simply in an economical point of view. 

England, as we have said, once groaned under the evils 
of positive slavery. The Anglo-Saxons had what they called 
“ live money,” such as sheep and slaves. To this cause may 
be doubtless attributed the easy conquest of the country 
by the Norman invaders, and the oppression that succeeded 
that conquest. If the people had been free, no king could 
have swept away the entire population of a hundred thou¬ 
sand souls that dwelt in the country between the Humber 
and the Tees, and converted a district of sixty miles in 
length into a dreary desert, which remained for years with¬ 
out houses and without inhabitants. This the Conqueror 
did. In the reign of Henry II. the slaves of England were 
exported in large numbers to Ireland. The slaves, or vil¬ 
leins, as is the case in Russia and Poland at the present 
day, differed in the degree of the oppression which was ex ¬ 
ercised toward them. Some, called “villeins in gross,” 
were at the absolute disposal of the lord—transferable 
from one owner to another, like a horse or a cow. Others, 
called “villeins regardant,” were annexed to particular 
estates, and were called upon to perform whatever agricul¬ 
tural offices the lord should demand from them, not having 
the power of acquiring any property, and their only privi¬ 
lege being that they were irremovable except with their 
own consent. These distinctions are not of much conse¬ 
quence, for, by a happy combination of circumstances, the 
bondmen of every kind, in the course of a century or two 
after the Conquest, were rapidly passing into the con¬ 
dition of free laborers. But still capital was accumulated 
so slowly, and labor was so unproductive, that the land did 
not produce the tenth part of a modern crop; and the 


PROGRESS OF FREEDOM. 


127 


country was constantly exposed to the severest inflictions 
of famine, whenever a worse than usual harvest occurred. 

In the reign of Edward III. the woolen manufacture was 
introduced into England. It was at first carried on exclu¬ 
sively by foreigners ; but as the trade extended, new hands 
were wanting, and the bondmen of the villages began to 
run away from their masters, and take refuge in the towns. 
If the slave could conceal himself successfully from the 
pursuit of his lord for a year and a day, he was held free 
forever. The constant attraction of the bondmen to the 
towns, where they could work for hire, gradually embold¬ 
ened those who remained as cultivators to assert their own 
natural rights. The nobility complained that the villeins 
refused to perform their accustomed services; and that corn 
remained uncut upon the ground. At length, in 1351, the 
25th year of Edward III., the class of free laborers was 
first recognized by the legislature; and a statute was 
passed, oppressive indeed, and impolitic, but distinctly ac¬ 
knowledging the right of the laborer to assume the char¬ 
acter of a free exchanger. Slavery, in England, was not 
wholly abolished by statute till the time of Charles II.: it 
was attempted in vain to be abolished in 1526. As late as 
the year 1775, the colliers of Scotland were accounted as- 
cripti glebce —that is, as belonging to the estate or colliery 
where they were born and continued to work. It is not 
necessary for us further to notice the existence of villeinage 
or slavery in England. Our business is with the slow prog¬ 
ress of the establishment of the rights of free laborers—and 
this principally to show that, during the long period when 
a contest was going forward between the capitalists and 
the laborers, industry was comparatively unproductive. It 
was not so unproductive, indeed, as during the period of 
absolute slavery; but as long as any man was compelled to 
work, or to continue at work, or to receive a fixed price, or 


128 


LAWS REGULATING LABOR. 


to remain in one place, or to follow one employment, labor 
could not be held to be free—property could not be held 
to be secure—capital and labor could not have cordially 
united for production—accumulation could not have been 
certain and rapid. 

In the year 1349 there was a dreadful pestilence in En¬ 
gland, which swept off large numbers of the people. Those 
of the laborers that remained, following the natural course 
of the great principle of demand and supply, refused to 
serve, unless they were paid double the wages which they 
had received five years before. Then came the “ Statute 
of Laborers,” of 1351, to regulate wages; and this statute 
enacted what should be paid to haymakers, and reapers, 
and thrashers; to carpenters, and masons, and tilers, and 
plasterers. No person was to quit his own village, if he 
could get work at these wages ; and laborers and artificers 
flying from one district to another in consequence of these 
regulations, were to be imprisoned. 

Good laws, it has been said, execute themselves. When 
legislators make bad laws, there requires a constant in¬ 
crease of vigilance and severity, and constant attempts at 
reconciling impossibilities, to allow such laws to work at 
all. In 1360 the Statute of Laborers was confirmed with 
new penalties, such as burning in the forehead with the 
letter F those workmen who left their usual abodes. 
Having controlled the wages of industry, the next step 
was for these blind lawgivers to determine how the work¬ 
men should spend their scanty pittance; and, accordingly, 
in 1363, a statute was passed to compel workmen and all 
persons not worth forty shillings to wear the coarsest cloth 
called russet, and to be served once a day with meat, or 
fish, and the offal of other victuals. But England was not 
without imitations of such absurdities in other nations. An 
ordinance of the King of France, in 1461, determined that 


WAGES AND PRICES. 


129 


good and fat meat should be sold to the rich, while the poor 
should be allowed only to buy the lean and stinking. 

While the wages of labor were fixed by statute, the price 
of wheat was constantly undergoing the most extraordinary 
fluctuations, ranging from two shillings a quarter (eight 
bushels) to one pound six shillings and eight pence. It was 
perfectly impossible that any profitable industry could go 
forward in the face of such unjust and ridiculous laws. In 
1376 the Commons complained that masters were obliged 
to give their servants higher wages to prevent their running 
away ; and that the country was covered with staf-strikers 
and sturdy rogues , who robbed in every direction. The 
villages were deserted by the laborers resorting to the 
towns, where commerce knew how to evade the destroying 
regulations of the statutes; and to prevent the total decay 
of agriculture, laborers were not allowed to move from place 
to place without letters patent; any laborer, not producing 
such a letter, was to be imprisoned and put in the stocks. 



PRISONERS IN THE STOCKS. 


If a lad had been brought up to the plow till he was 
twelve years of age, he was compelled to continue in hus¬ 
bandry all his life; and in 1406 it was enacted that all chil- 

6 * 









130 


WAGES AND PRICES. 


dren of parents not possessed of land should be brought up 
in the occupation of their parents. While the legislature, 
however, was passing these abominable laws, it was most 
effectually preparing the means for their extermination. 
Children were allowed to be sent to school in any part of 
the kingdom. When the light of education dawned upon 
the people, they could not long remain in the “darkness visi¬ 
ble” that succeeded the night of slavery. 

When the industry of the country was nearly annihilated 
by the laws regulating wages, it was found out that some¬ 
thing like a balance should be preserved between wages 
and prices; and the magistrates were therefore empowered 
twice a year to make proclamation, according to the price 
of provisions, how much every workman should receive. 
The system, however, would not work well. In 1496 a 
new statute of wages was passed, the preamble of which 
recited that the former statutes had not been executed, 
because “ the remedy by the said statutes is not very per¬ 
fect.” Then came a new remedy: that is, a new scale of 
wages for all trades; regulations for the hours of work and 
of rest; and penalties to prevent labor being transported 
from one district to another. As a necessary consequence 
of a fixed scale for wages, came another fixed scale for regu¬ 
lating the prices of provisions; till at last, in the reign of 
Henry VIII., lawgivers began to open their eyes to the 
folly of their proceedings, and the preamble of a statute 
says “that dearth, scarcity, good, cheap, and plenty of 
cheese, butter, capons, hens, chickens, and other victuals 
necessary for man’s sustenance, happeneth, riseth, and 
chanceth, of so many and divers occasions, that it is very 
hard and difficile to put any certain prices to any such 
things.” Yet they went on with new scales, in spite of the 
hardness of the task; till at last some of the worst of these 
absurd laws were swept from the statute-book. The just- 


THE POOR LAW. 


131 


ices, whose principal occupation was to balance the scale 
of wages and labor, complained incessantly of the difficulty 
of the attempt; and the statute of the 5th Elizabeth ac¬ 
knowledged that these old laws “ could not be carried into 
execution without the great grief and burden of the poor 
laborer and hired man.” Still new laws were enacted to 
prevent the freedom of industry working out plenty for 
capitalists as well as laborers; and at length, in 1601, a 
general assessment was directed for the support of the im¬ 
potent poor, and for setting the unemployed poor to work. 
The English capitalists at length paid a grievous penalty for 
their two centuries of oppression; and had to maintain a 
host of paupers, that had gradually filled the land during 
these unnatural contests. It would be perhaps incorrect 
to say, that these contests alone produced the paupers that 
required this legislative protection in the reign of Elizabeth; 
but certainly the number of those paupers would have been 
far less, if the laws of industry had taken their healthy and 
natural course—if capital and labor had gone hand in hand 
to produce abundance for all, and fairly to distribute that 
abundance in the form of profits and wages, justly balanced 
by the steady operation of demand and supply in a free and 
extensive market. 

The whole of these absurd and iniquitous laws, which 
had succeeded the more wicked laws of absolute slavery, 
proceeded from a struggle on the part of the capitalists in 
land against the growing power and energy of free labor. 
If the capitalists had rightly understood their interests, 
they would have seen that the increased production of a 
thriving and happy peasantry would have amply compen¬ 
sated them for all the increase of wages to which they were 
compelled to submit; and that at every step by which the 
condition of their laborers was improved their own con¬ 
dition was also improved. If, then, capital had worked 


132 


THE POOR LAW. 


naturally and honestly for the encouragement of labor, 
there would have been no lack of laborers; and it would 
not have been necessary to pass laws to compel artificers, 
under the penalty of the stocks, to assist in getting in the 
harvest. (5 Eliz.) If the laborers in agriculture had been 
adequately paid, they would not have fled to the towns; 
and if they had not been liable to cruel punishments for 
the exercise of this their natural right, the country would 
not have been covered with “valiant rogues and sturdy 
beggars.” 

Happy would it have been for the land if the law had left 
honest industry free, and in the case of dishonesty had ap¬ 
plied itself to more effectual work than punishments and 
terror. That most eminent man, Sir Matthew Hale, said, 
long ago, what we even now too often forget—“ The pre¬ 
vention of poverty, idleness, and a loose and disorderly 
education, even of poor children, would do more good to 
England than all the gibbets, and cauterizations, and whip¬ 
ping-posts, and jails in the kingdom.” The whole scheme 
of legislation for the poor, during the reigns of the English 
monarchs referred to, was to set the poor to work by forced 
contributions from capital. If the energy of the people had 
not found out how to set themselves to work in spite of bad 
laws, England might to this day have remained a nation of 
slaves and paupers. 

But the oppressions and restrictions imposed by the gov¬ 
ernment upon its subjects during these periods have not 
been wholly without advantages to succeeding generations; 
and the lessons then purchased by the sad experience of suf¬ 
fering humanity may be studied with profit at the present 
day. Under the iron rule and exactions of the Tudors and 
the Stuarts, that spirit of energy and impatience of restraint 
which has since characterized the Anglo-Saxons and their 
descendants was nurtured and developed. The historical 


LAW OF SETTLEMENT. 


133 


lessons of this period may teach the capitalist that involun¬ 
tary labor is the most unprofitable of all labor, and that the 
dictates of interest no less than of humanity require that the 
laborer shall be elevated and protected, and not degraded 
and persecuted. Governments may also learn that those 
communities are most prosperous that are governed least; 
and that by relinquishing the right to interfere with the 
property and industry of their subjects, they best protect 
the one, and stimulate and advance the other. 

Encouraged by the progress already made, let us hope 
that the day is not far distant when governments may also, 
with safety to society, relinquish their rights over the lives 
as well as the property of their people. When that time 
shall come, another great step will be taken in social and 
moral improvement, until at length the wish so quaintly and 
so hopefully expressed by the poet may find its full and 
perfect accomplishment: 

“ I would we were all of one mind, and one mind good; 

0 then were desolation of jailers and gallowses.” 


CHAPTER X. 


POSSESSIONS OF THE DIFFERENT CLASSES IN ENGLAND.—CONDITION OF COLCHESTER 
IN 1301. —TOOLS, STOCK IN TRADE, FURNITURE, ETC.—SUPPLY OF FOOD.—COM¬ 
PARATIVE DURATION OF HUMAN LIFE.—WANT OF FACILITIES FOR COMMERCE.— 
PLENTY AND CIVILIZATION NOT PRODUCTIVE OF EFFEMINACY.—COLCHESTER IN 
TILE PRESENT DAY. 


It will be desirable to exhibit something like an average 
view of the extent of the possessions of all classes of society, 
and especially of the middling and laboring classes, in En¬ 
gland, at a period when the mutual rights of capitalists and 
laborers were so little understood as in the fourteenth cen¬ 
tury. We have shown how, at that time, there was a gen¬ 
eral round of oppression, resulting from ignorance of the 
proper interests of the productive classes; and it would be 
well also to show that during this period of disunion and 
contest between capital and labor, each plundering the other, 
and both plundered by arbitrary power, whether of the no¬ 
bles or the crown, production went on very slowly and im¬ 
perfectly, and that there was little to plunder and less to 
exchange. It is difficult to find the materials for such an 
inquiry. There is no very accurate record of the condition 
of the various classes of society before the invention of print¬ 
ing ; and even after that invention we must be content to 
form our conclusions from a few scattered facts not recorded 
for any such purpose as we have in view, but to be gathered 
incidentally from slight observations which have come down 
to us. Yet enough remains to enable us to form.a picture 
of tolerable accuracy, and in some points to establish con- 


COLCHESTER IN 1301. 


135 


elusions which can not be disputed. It is in the same way 
that our knowledge of the former state of the physical world 
must be derived from relics of that former state, to which 
the inquiries and comparisons of the present times have given 
an historical value. We know, for instance, that certain 
animals now peculiar to tropical countries once abounded in 
northern latitudes, because we occasionally find their bones 
in quantities which could not have been accumulated unless 
such animals had been once native to these regions; and 
the remains of sea-shells upon the tops of hills now under 
the plow show us that even these heights have been heaved 
up from the bosom of the ocean. In the same way, although 
we have no complete picture of the state of property at the 
period to which we allude, we have evidence enough to de¬ 
scribe that state from records which may be applied to this 
end, although preserved for a very different object. 

In the reign of Edward III., in 1344, Colchester, in the 
county of Essex, was considered the tenth city in England 
in point of population. It then paid a poll-tax for 2955 lay 
persons. In 1301, about half a century before, the number 
of inhabitant housekeepers was 390; and the whole house¬ 
hold furniture, utensils, clothes, money, cattle, corn, and 
every other property found in the town, was valued at £518 
165. 0 \d. This valuation took place on occasion of a subsidy 
or tax to the crown, to carry on a war against France; and 
the particulars, which are preserved in the Rolls of Parlia¬ 
ment, exhibit with great minuteness the classes of persons 
then inhabiting that town, and the sort of property which 
each respectively possessed. The trades exercised in Col¬ 
chester were the following: baker, barber, blacksmith, bow- 
yer, brewer, butcher, carpenter, carter, cobbler, cook, dyer, 
fisherman, fuller, furrier, girdler, glass-seller, glover, linen- 
draper, mercer and spice seller, miller, mustard and vinegar 
seller, old clothes seller, saddler, tailor, tanner, tiler, weaver, 


136 


COLCHESTER IN 1301. 


wood-cutter, and wool-comber. If we look at a small town 
of the present day, where such a variety of occupations are 
carried on, we shall find that each tradesman has a consid¬ 
erable stock of commodities, abundance of furniture and 
utensils, clothes in plenty, some plate, books, and many ar¬ 
ticles of convenience and luxury to which the most wealthy 
dealers and mechanics of Colchester of the fourteenth cen¬ 
tury were utter strangers. That many places at that time 
were much poorer than Colchester there can be no doubt; 
for here we see the division of labor was pretty extensive, 
and that is always a proof that production is going forward, 
however imperfectly. We see, too, that the tradesmen 
were connected with manufactures in the ordinary use of 
the term; or there would not have been the dyer, the glover, 
the linen-draper, the tanner, the weaver, and the wool-comb¬ 
er. There must have been a demand for articles of foreign 
commerce, too, in this town, or we should not have had the 
spice-seller. Yet, with all these various occupations, indi¬ 
cating considerable profitable industry when compared with 
earlier stages in the history of this country, the whole stock 
of the town was valued at little more than £500. Nor let it 
be supposed that this smallness of capital can be accounted 
for by the difference in the standard of money, although 
that difference is considerable. We may indeed satisfy our¬ 
selves of the small extent of the capital of individuals at that 
day by referring to the inventory of the articles upon which 
the tax we have mentioned was laid at Colchester. 

The whole stock of a carpenter’s tools was valued at one 
shilling. They altogether consisted of two broad-axes, an 
adze, a square, and a navegor, or spoke-shave. Rough work 
must the carpenter have been able to perform with these 
humble instruments; but then let it be remembered that 
there was little capital to pay him for finer work, and that 
very little fine work was consequently required. The three 


COLCHESTER IN 1301. 


137 


hundred and ninety housekeepers of Colchester then lived 
in mud huts, with a rough door and no chimney. Harrison, 
speaking of the manners of a century later than the period 
we are describing, says, “There were very few chimneys 
even in capital towns; the fire was laid to the wall, and the 
smoke issued out at the roof, or door, or window. The 
houses were wattled, and plastered over with clay, and all 
the furniture and utensils were of wood. The people slept 
on straw pallets, with a log of wood for a pillow.” When 
this old historian wrote, he mentions the erection of chim¬ 
neys as a modern luxury. We had improved little upon 
our Anglo-Saxon ancestors in the article of chimneys. In 
their time, Alcuin, an abbot who had ten thousand vassals, 
writes to the emperor at Rome that he preferred living in 
his smoky house to visiting the palaces of Italy. This was 
in the ninth century. Leland, an old English chronicler, in 
his account of Bolton Castle, which he says was u finiched 
or Kynge Richard the 2 dyed” (1400), notices the chimneys 
as follows: “ One thynge I muche notyd in the hawle of 
Bolton, how chimeneys were conveyed by tunnells made on 
the syds of the walls betwyxt the lights in the hawle, and by 
this means, and by no covers, is the smoke of the harthe in 
the hawle wonder strangely conveyed.” Five himdred years 
had made little difference in the chimneys of Colchester. 
The nobility had hangings against the walls to keep out the 
wind, which crept in through the crevices which the build¬ 
er’s bungling art had left; the middle orders had no hang¬ 
ings. Shakspeare alludes to this rough building of houses 
even in his time: 

“ Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay, 

Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.” 

So late even as the time of Elizabeth, 1558, we find it 
stated that apologies were made to visitors if they could 


138 


COLCHESTER IN 1301. 


not be accommodated in rooms provided with chimneys, 
and ladies were frequently sent out to other houses, where 
they could have the enjoyment of this luxury, for such it 
undoubtedly was at that period, when only the houses of 
the rich were provided with it. Even the nobility went 
without glass to their windows in the fourteenth and fif¬ 
teenth centuries. “Of old times,” says Harrison, “our 
country houses, instead of glass, did use much lattice, and 
that made either of wicker or fine rifts of oak, in checker- 
wise.” When glass was introduced, it was for a long time 
so scarce, that at Alnwick Castle, in 1567, the glass was 
ordered to be taken out of the windows, and laid up in 
safety, when the lord was absent. 

The mercer’s stock-in-trade at Colchester was much 
upon a level with the carpenter’s tools. It was somewhat 
various, but very limited in quantity. The whole comprised 
a piece of woolen cloth, some silk and fine linen, flannel, 
silk purses, gloves, girdles, leather purses, and needlework; 
and it was altogether valued at three pounds. There ap¬ 
pears to have been another dealer in cloth and linen in the 
town, whose store was equally scanty. We were not much 
improved in the use of linen a century later. We learn 
from the Earl of Northumberland’s household-book, whose 
family was large enough to consume one hundred and sixty 
gallons of mustard during the winter with their salt meat, 
that only seventy ells of linen were allowed for a year’s con¬ 
sumption. In the fourteenth century none but the clergy 
and nobility wore white linen. As industry increased, and 
the cleanliness of the middle classes increased with it, the 
use of white linen became more general; but even at the 
end of the next century, when printing was invented, the 
paper-makers had the greatest difficulty in procuring rags 
for their manufacture; and so careful were the people of 
every class to preserve their linen, that night-clothes were 


COLCHESTER IN 1301. 


139 


never worn. Linen was so dear that Shakspeare makes 
Falstaff’s shirts eight shillings an ell. The more sumptuous 
articles of a mercer’s stock were treasured in rich families 
from generation to generation ; and even the wives of the 
nobility did not disdain to mention in their 'wills a particu¬ 
lar article of clothing, which they left to the use of a daugh¬ 
ter or a friend. The solitary old coat of a baker came into 
the Colchester valuation; nor is this to be wondered at, 
when we find that even the soldiers at the battle of Ban¬ 
nockburn, about this time, were described by an old rhymer 
as “ well near all naked.” 

The household furniture found in use among the families 
of Colchester consisted, in the more wealthy, of an occa¬ 
sional bed, a brass pot, a brass cup, a gridiron, and a rug or 
two, and perhaps a towel. Of chairs and tables we hear 
nothing. We learn from the Chronicles of Brantome, a 
French historian of these days, that even the nobility sat 
upon chests in which they kept their clothes and linen. 
Harrison, whose testimony we have already given to the 
poverty of these times, affirms, that if a man in seven years 
after marriage could purchase a flock bed, and a sack of 
chaff to rest his head upon, he thought himself as well 
lodged as the lord of the town, “who peradventure lay 
seldom on a bed entirely of feathers.” An old tenure in 
England, before these times, binds the vassal to find straw 
even for the king’s bed. The beds of flock, the few articles 
of furniture, the absence of chairs and tables, would have 
been of less consequence to the comfort and health of the 
people, if they had been clean; but cleanliness never exists 
without a certain possession of domestic conveniences. The 
people of England, in the days of which we are speaking, 
were not famed for their attention to this particular. 
Thomas a Becket was reputed extravagantly nice, because 
he had his parlor strewed every day with clean straw. As 


140 


PRIVATION'S IN' THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 


late as the reign of Henry Vni., Erasmus, a celebrated 
scholar of Holland, who visited England, complains that the 
nastiness of the people was the cause of the frequent plagues 
that destroyed them; and he says, “ their floors are com¬ 
monly of clay, strewed with rushes, under which lie unmo¬ 
lested a collection of beer, grease, fragments, bones, spittle, 
excrements of dogs and cats, and of every thing that is 
nauseous.” The elder Scaliger, another scholar who came 
to England, abuses the people for giving him no conve¬ 
nience to wash his hands. Glass vessels were scarce, and 
pottery was almost wholly unknown. The Earl of Nor¬ 
thumberland, whom we have mentioned, breakfasted on 

trenchers and dined 
on pewter. While 
such universal slov¬ 
enliness prevailed 
as Erasmus has de¬ 
scribed, it is not 
likely that much at¬ 
tention was gener¬ 
ally paid to the 
cultivation of the 
mind. Before the 
invention of print¬ 
ing, at the time of 
the valuation of 
Colchester, books 
in manuscript, from 
their extreme cost- 

ASTOR LIBRARY, NEW YORK CITY. lineSS, COUld be 

purchased only by 

princes. The royal library of Paris, in 1378, consisted of nine 
hundred and nine volumes—an extraordinary number. The 
same library now comprises upward of six hundred thou- 















READING- THE BIBLE. . 141 

sand yolumes. But it may fairly be assumed that, where one 
book could be obtained in the fourteenth century by persons 
of the working classes, four hundred thousand may be as 
easily obtained now. Even as late as 1539, in England, the 
Bible, now distributed gratuitously, was placed in churches 
and often chained to the desk for the use of the common peo- 


EEAD1NG THE BIBLE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 


pie; and the multitude assembled to hear it read from the 
few who possessed sufficient education for this purpose. 





142 


SUPPLY OF FOOD. 


Here then was a privation which existed five hundred 
years ago, which debarred our ancestors from more profit 
and pleasure than the want of beds, and chairs, and lin¬ 
en ; and probably, if this privation had continued, and 
men therefore had not cultivated their understandings, 
they would not have learned to give any really profitable 
direction to their labor, and we should still have been as 
scantily supplied with furniture and clothes as the good 
people of Colchester of whom we have been speaking. 

Let us see what accumulated supply, or capital of food, 
the inhabitants of England had five centuries ago. Pos¬ 
sessions in cattle are the earliest riches of most countries. 
.We have seen that cattle was called “live money;” and it 
is supposed that the word capital, which means stock gen¬ 
erally, was derived from the Latin word “ capita,” or heads 
of beasts. The law-term “ chattels,” is also supposed to 
come from cattle. These circumstances show that cattle 
were the chief property of our ancestors. Vast herds of 
swine constituted the great provision for the support of the 
people; and these were principally fed upon acorns and 
beech-mast. In Domesday Book, a valuation of the time 
of William the Conqueror, it is always mentioned how 
many hogs each estate can maintain. Hume the historian, 
in his Essays, alluding to the great herds of swine described 
by Polybius as existing in Italy and Greece, concludes that 
the country was thinly peopled and badly cultivated; and 
there can be no doubt that the same argument may be ap¬ 
plied to England in the fourteenth century, although many 
swine were maintained in forests preserved for fuel. The 
hogs wandered about the country in a half wild state, de¬ 
stroying, probably, more than they profitably consumed*; 
and they were badly fed, if we may judge from a statute of 
1402, which alleges the great decrease of fish in the Thames 
and other rivers, by the practice of feeding hogs with the 


SUPPLY OP FOOD. 


143 


fry caught at the weirs. The hogs’ flesh of England was 
constantly salted for the winter’s food. The people had 
little fodder for cattle in the winter, and therefore they 
only tasted fresh meat in the summer season. The mustard 
and vinegar seller formed a business at Colchester, to fur¬ 
nish a relish for the pork. Stocks of salted meat are men¬ 
tioned in the inventory of many houses there, and live hogs 
as commonly. But salted flesh is not food to be eaten con¬ 
stantly, and with little vegetable food, without severe in¬ 
jury to the health. In the early part of the reign of Henry 
VIII., not a cabbage, carrot, turnip, or other edible root, 
grew in England. Two or three centuries before, certainly, 
the monasteries had gardens with a variety of vegetables;. 
but nearly all the gardens of the laity were destroyed in 
the wars between the houses of York and Lancaster. Har¬ 
rison speaks of wheaten bread as being chiefly used by the 
gentry for their own tables; and adds that the artificer and 
laborer are “ driven to content themselves with horse-corn, 
beans, peason, oats, tares, and lentils.” There is no doubt 
that the average duration of human life was at that period 
not one half as long as at the present day. The constant 
use of salted meat, with little or no vegetable addition, 
doubtless contributed to the shortening of life, to say noth¬ 
ing of the large numbers constantly swept away by pesti¬ 
lence and famine. Till lemon-juice was used as a remedy 
for scurvy among seamen, who also are compelled to eat 
salted meat without green vegetables, the destruction of 
life in the navy was something incredible. The English 
admiral, Hosier, buried his ships’ companies twice during a 
West India voyage in 1726, partly from the unhealthiness 
of the Spanish coast, but chiefly from the ravages of scurvy. 
Bad food and want of cleanliness swept away the people of 
the middle ages, by ravages upon their health that the 
limited medical skill of those days could never resist. Mat- 


144 


FEW FACILITIES FOR COMMERCE. 


thew Paris, a historian of that period, states that there 
were in his time twenty thousand hospitals for lepers in 
Europe. 

The slow accumulation of capital in the early stages of 
the civilization of a country is in a great measure caused by 
the indisposition of the people to unite for a common good 
in public works, and the inability of governments to carry 
on these works, when their principal concern is war, foreign 
or domestic. The foundations of the civilization of England 
were probably laid by the Roman conquerors, who carried 
roads through the island, and taught the Britons how to 
cultivate the soil. Yet improvement went on so slowly, 
that even a hundred years after the Romans were settled 
here, the whole country was described as marshy. For 
centuries after the Romans had constructed the roads, en¬ 
tire districts were separated from one another by the gen¬ 
eral want of these great means of communication. Bracton, 
a law-writer of the period we have been so constantly men¬ 
tioning, holds that, if a man being at Oxford engage to pay 
money the same day in London, he shall be discharged of 
his contract, as he undertakes a physical impossibility. (The 
distance from Oxford to London is fifty-four miles.) We 
find, as late as the time of Elizabeth, that her majesty would 
not stay to breakfast at Cambridge because she had to travel 
twelve miles before she could come to the place, Hinchin- 
brook, where she desired to sleep. Where there were no 
roads, there could be few or no markets. An act of parlia¬ 
ment of 1272, says that the religious houses should not be 
compelled to sell their provisions—a proof that there were 
no considerable stores except in the religious houses. The 
difficulty of navigation was so great, that William Long- 
sword, son of Henry II., returning from France, was during 
three months tossed upon the sea before he could make a 
port in England. Looking, therefore, to the want of com- 


SUPPOSED CAUSES OF EFFEMINACY. 


145 


merce proceeding from the want of communication—look¬ 
ing to the small stock of property accumulated to support 
labor—and looking, as we have previously done, to the 
incessant contests between the small capital and the mis¬ 
directed labor, both feeble, because they worked without 
skill—we can not be surprised that the poverty of which 
we have exhibited a faint picture should have endured for 
several centuries, and that the industry of our English an¬ 
cestors must have had a long and painful struggle before it 
could have bequeathed to the people of England such mag¬ 
nificent accumulations as they now enjoy. 

The writers who lived at the 
periods when Europe was slowly 
emerging from ignorance and 
poverty, through the first slight 
imion of capital and labor as 
voluntary exchangers, complain 
of the increase of comforts as in¬ 
dications of the growing luxury 
and effeminacy of the people. 

Harrison says, “In times past 
men were content to dwell in 
houses builded of sallow, willow, 
plum-tree, or elm; so that the 
use of oak was dedicated to churches, religious houses, 
princes’ palaces, noblemen’s lodgings, and navigation. But 
now, these are rejected, and nothing but oak any whit 
regarded. And yet see the change ; for when our houses 
were builded of willow, then had we oaken men; but 
now that our houses are made of oak, our men are not 



ANCIENT ENGLISH CHAIR. 


only become willow, but many, through Persian delicacy 
crept in among us, altogether of straw, which is a sore al¬ 
teration. In those days the courage of the owner was a 
sufficient defense to keep the house in safety; but now, the 










140 SUPPOSED CAUSES OF EFFEMINACY. 

assurance of the timber, double doors, locks, and bolts, 
must defend the man from robbing. Now have we many 
chimneys, and our tenderlings complain of rheums, ca¬ 
tarrhs, and poses. Then had we none but rere-doses, and 
our heads did never ache.” These complaints go upon the 
same principle that made it a merit in Epictetus, the Greek 
philosopher, to have had no door to his hovel. We think 
he would have been a wiser man if he had contrived to 
have had a door. A story is told of a Highland chief, Sir 
Evan Cameron, that himself and a party of his followers 
being benighted and compelled to sleep in the open air, 
when his son rolled up a ball of snow and laid his head 
upon it for a pillow, the rough old man kicked it away, ex¬ 
claiming, “ What, sir! are you turning effeminate ?” We 
doubt whether Sir Evan Cameron and his men were braver 
than the English officers who fought at Waterloo ; and yet 
many of these marched from the ball-room at Brussels in 
their holiday attire, and won the battle in silk stockings. 
It is an old notion that plenty of the necessaries and con¬ 
veniences of life renders a nation feeble. We are told that 
the Carthaginian soldiers whom Hannibal carried into Italy 
were suddenly rendered effeminate by the abundance which 
they found around them at Capua. The Commissariat of 
modern nations goes upon another principle ; and believes 
that unless the soldier has plenty of food and clothing he 
will not fight with alacrity and steadiness. The half-starved 
soldiers of Henry Y. won the battle of Agincourt; but it 
was not because they were half-starved, but because they 
roused their native courage to cut their way out of the peril 
by which they were surrounded. When we hear of ancient 
nations being enervated by abundance, we may be sure 
that the abundance was almost entirely devoured by a few 
tyrants, and that the bulk of the people were rendered 
weak by the destitution which resulted from the unnatural 


SUPPOSED CAUSES OF EFFEMINACY. 147 

distribution of riches. We hear of the luxury of the court 
of Persia—the pomp of the seraglios, and of the palaces— 
the lights, the music, the dancing, the perfumes, the silks, 
the gold, and the diamonds. The people are held to be ef¬ 
feminate. The Russians, from the hardy north, can lay the 
Persian monarchy any day at their feet. Is this national 
weakness caused by the excess of production among the 
people, giving them so extravagant a command over the 
necessaries and luxuries of life that they have nothing to do 
but drink of the full cup of enjoyment ? Mr. Fraser, an 
English traveler, thus describes the appearance of a part of 
the country which he visited in 1821: “ The plain of Yezid- 
Khaust presented a truly lamentable appearance of the 
general decline of prosperity in Persia. Ruins of large vil¬ 
lages thickly scattered about with the skeleton-like walls of 
caravansaries and gardens, all telling of better times, stood 
like memento moris (remembrances of death) to kingdoms 
and governments; and the whole plain was dotted over 
with small mounds, which indicate the course of cannauts 
(artificial streams for watering the soil), once the source 
of riches and fertility, now all choked up and dry; for 
there is neither man nor cultivation to require their aid.” 
Was it the luxury of the people which produced this decay 
—the increase of their means of production—their advance¬ 
ment in skill and capital; or some external cause which re¬ 
pressed production, and destroyed accumulation both of 
outward wealth and knowledge ? “ Such is the character 

of their rulers,” says Mr. Fraser, “ that the only measure 
of their demands is the power to extort on one hand, and 
the ability to give or restrain on the other.” Where such 
a system prevails, all accumulated labor is concealed, for it 
would otherwise be plundered. It does not freely and 
openly work to encourage new labor. Buckhardt, the 
traveler of Nubia, saw a farmer who had been plundered 



148 COLCHESTER IN THE PRESENT DAT. 

of every thing by the pacha, because it came to the ears of 
the savage ruler that the unhappy man was in the habit of 
eating wheaten bread ; and that, he thought, was too great 
a luxury for a subject. If such oppressions had not long 
ago been put down in England, she would still have been 
in the state of Colchester in the fourteenth century. When 
these iniquities prevailed, and there was neither freedom of 
industry nor security of property—when capital and labor 
were not united—when all men consequently worked un- 
profitably, because they worked without division of labor, 
accumulation of knowledge, and union of forces—there 
was universal poverty, because there was feeble production. 
Slow and painful were the steps which capital and labor had 
to make before they could emerge, even in part, from this 
feeble and degraded state. But that they have made a 
wonderful advance in five hundred years will not be difficult 
to show. It may assist us in this view if we compare the 
Colchester of the nineteenth century with the Colchester 
of the fourteenth, in a few particulars. 

In the reign of Edward III. Colchester numbered 859 
houses of mud, without chimneys, and with latticed win¬ 
dows. In the reign of Queen Victoria, according to the 
census of 1851, it has 4145 inhabited houses, containing a 
population of 19,443 males and females. The houses of the 
better class, those rented at fifty dollars a year and upward, 
are commonly built of brick, and slated or tiled; secured 
against wind and weather; with glazed windows and with 
chimneys, and generally well ventilated. The worst of these 
houses are supplied, as fixtures, with a great number of con¬ 
veniences, such as grates, and cupboards, and fastenings. 
To many of such houses gardens are attached, wherein are 
raised vegetables and fruits that kings could not command 
two centuries ago. Houses such as these are composed of 
several rooms—not of one room only, where the people are 


COLCHESTER IN THE PRESENT DAY. 149 

compelled to eat and sleep, and perform every office, perhaps 
in company with pigs and cattle—but of a kitchen, and often 
a parlor, and several bedrooms. These rooms are furnished 
with tables, and chairs, and beds, and cooking utensils. 
There is ordinarily, too, something for ornament and some¬ 
thing for instruction; a piece or two of china, silver spoons, 
books, and not unfrequently a watch or clock. The useful 
pottery is abundant, and of really elegant forms and colors; 
drinking-vessels of glass are universal. The inhabitants are 
not scantily supplied with clothes. The females are decently 
dressed, having a constant change of linen, and gowns of va¬ 
rious patterns and degrees of fineness. Some, even of the 
humbler classes, are not thought to exceed the proper ap¬ 
pearance of their station if they wear silk. The men have 
decent working habits, strong shoes and hats, and a respect¬ 
able suit for Sundays, of cloth often as good as is worn by 
the highest in the land. Every one is clean; for no house 
above the few hovels which still deform the country is with¬ 
out soap and bowls for washing, and it is the business of the 
females to take care that the linen of the family is constantly 
washed. The children very generally receive instruction in 
some public establishment; and when the labor of the day 
is over, the father thinks the time unprofitably spent unless 
he burns a candle to enable him to read a book or the news¬ 
paper. The food which is ordinarily consumed is of the 
best quality. Wheaten bread is no longer confined to the 
rich; animal food is not necessarily salted, and salt meat is 
used principally as a variety; vegetables of many sorts are 
plenteous in every market, and these by a succession of care 
are brought to higher perfection than in the countries of 
more genial climate from which we have imported them; 
the productions, too, of distant regions, such as spices, and 
coffee, and tea, and sugar, are universally consumed almost 


150 


COLCHESTER IN THE PRESENT DAY. 


by the humblest in the land. Fuel, also, of the best quality, 
is abundant and comparatively cheap.* 

If we look at the public conveniences of a modern En¬ 
glish town, we shall find the same striking contrast. Water 
is brought not only into every street, but into every house; 
the dust and dirt of a family is regularly removed without 
bustle or unpleasantness; the streets are paved, and lighted 
at night; roads in the highest state of excellence connect 
the town with the whole kingdom, and by means of rail¬ 
roads a man can travel several hundred miles in a few hours, 
and more readily than he could ten miles in the old time ; 
and canal and sea navigation transport the weightiest goods 
with the greatest facility from each district to the other, 
and from each town to the other, so that all are enabled to 
apply their industry to what is most profitable for each and 
all. Every man, therefore, may satisfy his wants, according 
to his means, at the least possible expense of the transport 
of commodities. Every tradesman has a stock ready to 
meet the demand; and thus the stock of a very moderately 
wealthy tradesman of the Colchester of the present day is 
worth more than all the stock of all the different trades 
that were carried on in the same place in the fourteenth 
century. The condition of a town like Colchester—a 
flourishing market-town in an agricultural district—offers 
a fair point of comparison with a town of the time of 
Edward III. 

* This picture of a flourishing English city, and the condition of its popu¬ 
lation of 19,000 in the middle of the nineteenth century, when contrasted 
with any flourishing town or village in the northern United States, will 
show that, so far as regards educational advantages, practical privileges, 
and a command over the comforts and luxuries of life, the great mass of 
the English people are yet far less advanced than their most favored 
transatlantic brethren. 


CHAPTER XI. 


CERTAINTY THE STIMULUS TO INDUSTRY.—EFFECTS OF INSECURITY.—INSTANCES OF 

UNPROFITABLE LABOR.—FORMER NOTIONS OF COMMERCE.—ENGLAND AND HER 

AMERICAN COLONIES.—NATIONAL AND CLASS PREJUDICES, AND THEIR REMEDY. 

Two of the most terrific famines that are recorded in the 
history of the world occurred in Egypt—a country where 
there is greater production, with less labor, than is prob¬ 
ably exhibited in any other region. The principal laborer 
in Egypt is the river Nile, whose periodical overflowings 
impart fertility to the thirsty soil, and produce in a few 
weeks that abundance which the labor of the husbandman 
might not hope to command if employed during the whole 
year. But the Nile is a workman that can not be controlled 
and directed, even by capital, the great controller and 
director of all work. The influences of heat, and fight, and 
air, are pretty equal in the same places. Where the climate 
is most genial, the cultivators have least labor to perform 
in winning the earth; where it is least genial, the culti¬ 
vators have most labor. The increased labor balances the 
small natural productiveness. But the inundation of a great 
river can not be depended upon like the fight and heat of 
the sun. For two seasons the Nile refused to rise, and 
labor was not prepared to compensate for this refusal; the 
ground refused to produce; the people were starved. 

We mention these famines of Egypt to show that cer¬ 
tainty is the most encouraging stimulus to every operation 
of human industry. We know that production as invariably 


152 CERTAINTY A STIMULUS TO INDUSTRY. 

follows a right direction of labor, as day succeeds to night. 
We believe that it will be dark to-night and light again to¬ 
morrow, because we know the general laws which govern 
light and darkness, and because our experience shows us 
that those laws are constant and uniform. We know that 
if we plow, and manure, and sow the ground, a crop will 
come in due time, varying indeed in quantity according to 
the season, but still so constant upon an average of years, 
that we are justified in applying large accumulations and 
considerable labor to the production of this crop. It is this 
certainty that we have such a command of the productive 
powers of nature as will abundantly compensate us for the 
incessant labor of directing those forces, which has during 
a long course of industry heaped up our manifold accu¬ 
mulations, and which enables production annually to go 
forward to an extent which even half a century ago would 
have been thought impossible. The long succession of 
labor, which has covered this country with wealth, has 
been applied to the encouragement of the productive 
forces of nature, and the restraint of the destructive. No 
one can doubt that, the instant the labor of man ceases 
to direct those productive natural forces, the destroying 
forces immediately come into action. Take the most 
familiar instance—a cottage whose neat thatch was never 
broken, whose latticed windows were always entire, whose 
whitewashed walls were ever clean, round whose porch 
the honeysuckle was trained in regulated luxuriance, 
whose garden bore nothing but what the owner planted. 
Remove that owner. Shut up the cottage for a year, and 
leave the garden to itself. The thatched roof is tom off 
by the wind and devoured by mice, the windows are 
driven in by storms, the walls are soaked through with 
damp and are crumbling to ruin, the honeysuckle obstructs 
the entrance which it once adorned, the garden is covered 


WAR THE DISTURBER OF INDUSTRY. 


153 


with weeds which years of after-labor will have difficulty 
to destroy: 

“ It was a plot 

Of garden-ground run wild, its matted weeds 
Mark’d with the steps of those whom, as they pass’d, 

The gooseberry-trees that shot in long lank slips, 

Or currants, hanging from their leafless stems 
In scanty strings, had tempted to o’erleap 
The broken wall.” 

Apply this principle upon a large scale. Let the pro¬ 
ductive energy of a country be suspended through some 
great cause which prevents its labor continuing in a prof¬ 
itable direction. Let it be overrun by a conqueror, or 
plundered by domestic tyranny of any kind, so that capital 
ceases to work with security. The fields suddenly become 
barren, the towns lose theft inhabitants, the roads grow 
to be impassable, the canals are choked up, the rivers 
break down their banks, the sea itself swallows up the 
land. Shakspeare, a great political reasoner as well as a 
great poet, has described such effects in that part of 
“ Henry V.” where the Duke of Burgundy exhorts the rival 
kings to peace: 

“ Let it not disgrace me, 

If I demand, before this royal view, 

What rub, or what impediment, there is, 

Why that the naked, poor, and mangled peace, 

Dear nurse of arts, plenties, and joyful births, 

Should not, in this best garden of the world, 

Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage ? 

Alas! she hath from France too long been chas’d; 

And all her husbandry doth lie on heaps, 

Corrupting its own fertility. 

Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart, 

Unpruned, dies; her hedges even-pleach’d. 

Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair 
1 * 


154 


EFFECTS OF INSECURITY. 


Put forth disorder’d twigs: her fallow leas, 

The darnel, hemlock, and rank fumitory 
Doth root upon; while that the coulter rusts, 

That should deracinate such savagery: 

That even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth 
The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover, 

Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank, 

Conceives by idleness; and nothing teems 
But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs, 

Losing both beauty and utility: 

And as our vineyards, fallows, meads, and hedges, 

Defective in their natures, grow to wildness; 

Even so our houses, and ourselves and children, 

Have lost, or do not learn, for want of time, 

The sciences that should become our country.” 

It is a familiar English proverb, “ that Tenterden steeple 
was the cause of Goodwin Sands.”* The meaning of the 
saying is, that the capital which was appropriated to keep 
out the sea from that part of the Kentish coast was diverted 
to the building of Tenterden steeple; and there being no 
funds to keep out the sea, it washed over the land. The 
Goodwin Sands remam to show that man must carry on a 
perpetual contest to keep in subjection the forces of nature, 
which, as is said of fire, are good servants, but bad masters. 
But these examples show, also, that in the social state our 
control of the physical forces of nature depends upon the 
right control of our own moral forces. There was injustice, 
doubtless, in misappropriating the funds which restrained 
the sea from devouring the land. Till men know that they 
shall work with justice on every side, they work feebly and 
unprofitably. England did not begin to accumulate largely 
and rapidly till the rights both of the poor man and the 
rich were to a certain degree established—till industry was 

* The Goodwin Sands are dangerous shoals upon the coast of Kent, 
England. 


ADVANTAGES OF TRANQUILLITY. 155 

free and property secure. Her great dramatic poet has 
described this security as the best characteristic of the 
reign of Queen Elizabeth: 

“In her days every man shall eat in safety 
Under his own vine what he plants.” 

Shakspeare derived his image from the Bible, where a state 
of security is frequently indicated by direct allusion to a 
man sitting under the shade of his own fig-tree or his own 
vine. In the days of Elizabeth, as compared with previous 
eras, there was safety, and a man might 

“Sing 

The merry songs of peace to all his neighbors.” 

England has gone on, constantly improving these blessings. 
But let any circumstances again arise which may be power¬ 
ful enough to destroy or even molest the freedom of indus¬ 
try and the security of property, and her people would work 
once more without certainty. The elements of prosperity 
would not be constant and uniform. They would work 
with the apprehension that some hurricane of tyranny, no 
matter from what power, would arise, which would sweep 
away accumulation. When that hurricane did not rise, 
they might have comparative abundance, like the people of 
Egypt during the inundation of the Nile. They would 
then have an inundation of tranquillity. But if the tran¬ 
quillity were not present—if lawless violence stood in the 
place of justice and security—the people of England would 
be like the people of Egypt when the Nile did not overflow. 
They would suffer the extremity of misery; and that possi¬ 
ble extremity would produce an average misery, even if 
tranquillity did return, because security had not returned. 
They would, if this state of things long abided, by degrees 
go back to the condition of Colchester in the fourteenth 


156 


UNPKOFITABLE LABOK. 


century, and thence to the universal marsh of two thousand 
years ago. The place where London stands would be, as it 
once was, a wilderness for howling wolves. The few that 
produced would again produce laboriously and painfully, 
without skill and -without division of labor, because without 
accumulation ; and it would probably take another thousand 
years, if men again saw the absolute need of security, to 
re-create what security has accumulated for the present 
use. 

From the moment that the industry of England began to 
work with security, and capital and labor applied them¬ 
selves in union—perhaps not a perfect union, but still in 
union—to the great business of production, they worked 
with less and less expenditure of unprofitable labor. They 
continued to labor more and more profitably, as they 
labored with knowledge. The labor of all rude nations, 
and of all uncultivated individuals, is labor with ignorance. 
Peter the wild boy, whom we have already mentioned, 
could never be made to perceive the right direction of 
labor, because he could not trace it through its circuitous 
courses for the production of utility. He would work under 
control, but, if left to himself, he would not work profitably. 
Having been trusted to fill a cart with manure, he labored 
-with diligence till the work was accomplished; but no one 
being at hand to direct him, he set to work as diligently to 
unload the cart again. He thought, as too many think 
even now, that the good was in the labor, and not in the 
results of the labor. The same ignorance exhibits itself in 
the unprofitable labor and unprofitable application of capi¬ 
tal, even of persons far removed beyond the half-idiocy of 
Peter the wild .boy. In the thirteenth century many of the 
provinces of France were overrun with rats, and the people, 
instead of vigorously hunting the rats, were persuaded to 
carry on a process against them in the ecclesiastic courts; 


UNPROFITABLE LABOR. 


157 


and there, after the cause of the injured people and the in¬ 
juring rats was solemnly debated, the rats were declared 
cursed and excommunicated if they did not retire in six 
days. The historian does not add that the rats obeyed the 
injunction ; and doubtless the farmers were less prepared to 
resort to the profitable labor of chasing them to death when 
they had paid the ecclesiastics for the unprofitable labor of 
their excommunication. There is a curious instance of un¬ 
profitable labor given in a book on the Coal Trade of Scot¬ 
land, written as recently as 1812. The people of Edin¬ 
burg, had a passion for buying their coals in immense 
lumps, and to gratify this passion, the greatest care was 
taken not to break the coal in any of the operations of con¬ 
veying them from the pit to the cellar of the consumer. A 
wall of coals was first built within the pit, another wall un¬ 
der the pit’s mouth, another wall when they were raised 
from the pit, another wall in the wagon which conveyed 
them to the port where they were shipped, another wall in 
the hold of the ship, another wall in the cart which conveyed 
them to the consumer, and another wall in the consumer’s 
cellar; and the result of these seven different buildings-up 
and takings-down was, that after the consumer had paid 
thirty per cent, more for these square masses of coal than 
for coal shoveled together in large and small pieces, his 
servant had daily to break the large coals to bits to enable 
him to make any use of them. It seems extraordinary that 
such waste of labor and capital should have existed among 
a highly acute and refined community within the last forty 
years. They, perhaps, thought they were making good for 
trade, and therefore submitted to the evil; while the Glas¬ 
gow people, on the contrary, by saving thirty per cent, in 
their coals, had that thirty per cent, to bestow upon new en¬ 
terprises of industry, and for new encouragement to labor. 

The unprofitable applications of capital and labor which 


158 


FORMER NOTIONS ON COMMERCE. 


the early history of the civilization of every people has to 
record, and which, among many, have subsisted even while 
they held themselves at the height of refinement, have been 
fostered by the ignorance of the great, and even of the 
learned, as to the causes which, advancing production or re¬ 
tarding it, advanced or retarded their own interests, and 
the interests of all the community. Princes and statesmen, 
prelates and philosophers, were equally ignorant of 

“ What makes a nation happy, and keeps it so; 

What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat.” 

It was enough for them to consume; they thought it be¬ 
neath them to observfe even, much less to assist in, the 
direction of production. This was ignorance as gross as 
that of Peter the wild boy, or the excommunication of rats. 
It has always been the fashion of ignorant greatness to 
despise the mechanical arts. The pride of the Chinese man¬ 
darins was to let their nails grow as long as their fingers, to 
show that they never worked. Even European nobles once 
sought the same absurd distinction. In France, under the 
old monarchy, no descendant of a nobleman could embark 
in trade without the highest disgrace; and the principle 
was so generally recognized as just, that a French writer, 
even as recently as 1758, reproaches the sons of the English 
nobility for the contrary practice, and asks, with an air of 
triumph, how can a man be fit to serve his country in par¬ 
liament after having meddled with such paltry concerns as 
those of commerce ?* Montesquieu, a writer in most re- 

* It is a striking illustration of the change which a single century has 
effected in the minds and opinions of men, to find John Bright, in 1855, 
in the British House of Commons, fearlessly denouncing the English aris¬ 
tocracy and nobility, as of all others the most incapable of being intrusted 
with the duties and responsibilities of government, “ no portion of which 
can they manage with even common ability and demanding, in company 


FORMER NOTIONS ON COMMERCE. 159 

spects of enlarged views, holds that it is beneath the dignity 
of governments to interfere with such trumpery things as 
the regulation of weights and measures. Society might 
have well spared the interference of governments with 
weights and measures if they had been content to leave all 
commerce equally free. But, in truth, the regulation of 
weights and measures is almost a solitary exception to the 
great principle which governments ought to practice, of not 
interfering, or interfering little, with oommerce. 

Louis XIY. did not waste more capital and labor by his 
ruinous wars, and by his covering France with fortifications 
and palaces, than by the perpetual interferences of himself 
and his predecessors with the freedom of trade, which com¬ 
pelled capital and labor to work unprofitably. Had it not 
been also for the absurd and tyrannical laws regulating 
manufactures and commerce, which the British parliament 
so constantly imposed upon its American colonies, it is not 
improbable that the revolution which deprived England of 
its finest possessions, might have been averted, or at least 
postponed. Some of the most curious examples of laws re¬ 
stricting the rights of labor and of commerce, enacted in 
modern times, are to be found in the history of British 
legislation respecting America. As early as 1699, the colo¬ 
nies were prohibited from exporting wool yarn, or woolen 
fabrics, or from carrying them coastwise from one colony 
to another. Wool was at that time the great staple of 
England, and its growers and manufacturers envied the 
colonies the possession of a flock of sheep, a spindle, or a 
loom. Complaints were also made by the London hatters 

with numerous other members of both Houses of Parliament, and the 
most influential of the citizens of London, that “ the right men" those who 
were experienced from their practical management of commercial and 
mercantile affairs, should be elevated to stations of official trust and 
honor. 


160 


FORMER NOTIONS ON COMMERCE. 


that great quantities of hats were made in America and 
shipped to other countries to their injury, and parliament 
struck at the root of the evil by an act which prevented 
the exportation of hats from the colonies to foreign coun¬ 
tries, and from being carried from one plantation to another. 
They prohibited hats from being laden upon a horse, cart, 
or other carriage in America, with intent to be exported to 
any other plantation, or to any place whatever / and no 
hatter in the colonies was allowed to employ more than two 
apprentices, or to make hats at all, unless he had served an 
apprenticeship of seven years to the trade. Thus the fabrics 
of Connecticut might not seek a market in Massachusetts, 
or be sold in New York. An English sailor, or merchant, 
arriving at the port of Boston, was also prohibited from 
purchasing woolens of the value of more than forty shillings. 

In 1750, parliament passed a law prohibiting the erection 
or contrivance of any mill, or engine for slitting or rolling 
iron, or any plating forge to work with a tilt-hammer, or any 
furnace for making steel in the colonies, under the penalty 
of two hundred pounds. And to secure the enforcement 
of the law, they declared all such mills to be common nui¬ 
sances, and the governors of the colonies were directed to 
abate them, or forfeit five hundred pounds to the crown. 

Enactments like these seem so strange at the present day, 
so contrary to all natural principles of right and justice, so 
repugnant to common sense, that men are almost incredu¬ 
lous of their former actual existence. It may be said that 
these laws, enacted by the English Parliament, were in¬ 
tended not to regulate American industry, but to prohibit 
it entirely, and the intolerable injustice of this course of 
procedure was not only not perceived, but even defended 
by the ablest and most renowned of British statesmen. 
“ The interests of the landed proprietors,” says a writer on 
the subject, “ with the monopolies of commerce and manu- 


PREJUDICES, AND THEIR REMEDY. 161 

factures, jointly fostered by artificial legislation, had so 
corrupted the public judgment, that there was not even 
.secret compunction.” 

The injurious effect of these laws was not wholly con¬ 
fined to the colonies, but became equally so to England, 
from their effects on the connection between America and 
the mother-country. Trade, instead of being encouraged, 
was interrupted; and commerce, which should have been a 
bond of peace between the two nations, was made a source 
of constant hostility, and an instrument for distributing the 
germs of disaffection, which afterward ripened into civil 
war. 

In every age and country the naturally slow progress of 
profitable industry has been rendered more slow by the 
perpetual inclination of those in authority to divert indus¬ 
try from its natural and profitable channels. It was, there¬ 
fore, wisely said by a committee of merchants to Colbert, 
the prime minister of France in the reign of Louis XIV., 
when he asked them what measures government could 
adopt to promote the interests of commerce—“ Let us 
alone; permit us quietly to manage our own business.” It 
is undeniable that the interests of all are best promoted 
when each is left free to attend to his own interests, under 
the necessary social restraints which prevent him doing a 
positive injury to his neighbor. It is thus that agriculture 
and manufactures are essentially allied in their interests; 
that unrestrained commerce is equally essential to the real 
and permanent interests of agriculture and manufactures ; 
that capital and labor are equally united in their most es¬ 
sential interest, which is, that there should- be cheap produc¬ 
tion. While these principles are not understood at all, or 
while they are imperfectly understood—as they are still by 
many classes and individuals—there must be a vast deal of 
bickering and heart-burning between individuals who ought 


162 PREJUDICES, AND THEIR REMEDY. 

to be united, and classes who ought to be united, and na¬ 
tions who ought to be united ; and so long as it is not felt 
by all, that their natural rights are understood and will bo< 
respected, there is a feeling of insecurity which more or 
less affects the prosperity of all. The only remedy for 
these evils is the extension of knowledge. Louis XV. pro¬ 
claimed to the French that the English were their “ veritar 
hies ennemis ,” their true enemies. When knowledge is 
triumphant it will be found that there are no “ veritables 
ennemis” either among nations, or classes, or individuals. 
The prejudices by which nations, classes, and individuals are 
led to believe that the interest of one is opposed to the inter¬ 
est of another, are, nine times out of ten, as utterly ridiculous 
as the reason which a Frenchman once gave for hating the 
English—which was, “ that they poured melted butter on 
their roast vealand this was not more ridiculous than the 
old denunciation of the English against the French, that 
“they ate frogs, and wore wooden shoes.” When the 
world is disabused of the belief that the wealth of one na¬ 
tion, class, or individual must be created by the loss of 
another’s wealth, then, and then only, will all men steadily 
and harmoniously apply to produce and to enjoy—to ac¬ 
quire prosperity and happiness—lifting themselves to the 
possession of good 


“By Reason’s light, on Resolution’s wing.’ 


CHAPTER XII. 


EMPLOYMENT OF MACHINERY IN MANUFACTURES AND AGRICULTURE.—ERRONEOUS 
NOTIONS FORMERLY PREVALENT ON THIS SUBJECT.—ITS ADVANTAGES TO THE 
LABORER.—SPADE HUSBANDRY.—THE PRINCIPLE OF MACHINERY.—MACHINES AND 
TOOLS.—CHANGE IN THE CONDITION OF ENGLAND CONSEQUENT ON THE INTRODUC¬ 
TION OF MACHINERY.—MODERN NEW ZEALANDERS AND ANCIENT GREEKS.—HAND- 
MILLS AND WATER-MILLS. 

One of the most striking effects of the want of knowl¬ 
edge producing disunions among mankind that are injurious 
to the interests of each and all, is the belief which still ex¬ 
ists among many well-meaning but unreflecting persons, 
that the powers and arrangements which capital has cre¬ 
ated and devised for the advancement of production are 
injurious to the great body of working-men in their charac¬ 
ter of producers. The great forces by which capital and 
labor now work—forces which are gathering strength every 
day—are accumulation of skill and division of employments. 
It will be for us to show that the applications of science to 
the manufacturing arts have the effect of insuring cheap 
production and increased employment. These applications 
of science are principally displayed in the use of Machin¬ 
ery ; and we shall endeavor to prove that, although indi¬ 
vidual labor may be partially displaced or unsettled for a 
time, by the use of this cheaper and better power than 
unassisted manual labor, all are great gainers by the general 
use of that power. Through that power all principally pos¬ 
sess, however poor they may be, many of the comforts 
which make the difference between man in a civilized and 


164 EMPLOYMENT OF MACHINERY IN MANUFACTURES. 

man in a savage state ; and further, that in consequence of 
machinery having rendered productions of all sorts cheaper, 
and therefore caused them to be more universally pur¬ 
chased, it has really increased the demand for that manual 
labor, which it appears to some, reasoning only from a few 
instances, it has a tendency to dimmish. 

In the year 1827, a Committee of the English House of 
Commons was appointed to examine into the subject of em¬ 
igration. The first person examined before that Committee 
was Joseph Foster, a working weaver of Glasgow. He told 
the Committee that he and many others, who had formed 
themselves into a society, were in great distress; that num¬ 
bers of them worked at the hand-loom from eighteen to 
nineteen hours a day, and that their earnings, at the utmost, 
did not amount to more than seven shillings a week, and 
that sometimes they were as low as four shillings. That 
twenty years before that time they could readily earn a 
pound a week by the same industry; and that as power- 
loom weaving had increased, the distress of the hand-weav¬ 
ers also had increased in the same proportion. The Com¬ 
mittee then put to Joseph Foster the following questions, 
and received the following answers: 

Q. “ Are the Committee to understand that you attrib¬ 
ute the insufficiency of your remuneration for your labor to 
the introduction of machinery ? 

A. “ Yes. 

Q. “ Do you consider, therefore, that the introduction of 
machinery is objectionable? 

A. “We do not. The weavers in general, of Glasgow 
and its vicinity, do not consider that machinery can or 
ought to be stopped, or put down. They know perfectly 
well that machinery must go on, that it will go on, and that 
it is impossible to stop it. They are aware that every im¬ 
plement of agriculture or manufacture is a portion of ma- 


EMPLOYMENT OF MACHINERY IN MANUFACTURES. 165 

chinery, and, indeed, every thing that goes beyond the 
teeth and nails (if I may use the expression) is a machine. 
I am authorized, by a majority of our society, to say that I 
speak their minds, as well as my own, in stating this.” 

It is worthy of note how the common sense of this work¬ 
ing-man, a quarter of a century ago, saw clearly the great 
principle which overthrows, in the outset, all unreasoning 
hostility to machinery. Let us follow out his principle. 

Among the many accounts which the newspapers of En¬ 
gland, in 1830, gave of the destruction of machinery by 
agricultural laborers, it was stated that in one district a 
band of mistaken and unfortunate men destroyed all the 
machinery of many farms, down even to the common drills. 
The men conducted themselves, says the newspaper, with 
civility; and such was their consideration, that they moved 
the machines out of the farm-yards, to prevent injury aris¬ 
ing to the cattle from the nails and splinters that flew about 
while the machinery was being destroyed. They could not 
make up their minds as to the propriety of destroying a 
horse-churn, and therefore that machine was passed over. 

A quarter of a century has made a remarkable difference 
in the feelings of laborers, not only in England, but in all 
other countries, even among the least informed with regard 
to machinery. The majority of the people now know, as 
the weavers of Glasgow knew in 1827, that “machinery 
must go on, that it will go on, and that it is impossible to 
stop it.” It is unnecessary at the present day to adduce 
any argument to prove or sustain this position. Common 
sense teaches it, and in the United States especially, where 
the fact is almost universally acknowledged and acted upon, 
the great majority of laborers rejoice in every new mechan¬ 
ical application and improvement, as an additional instru¬ 
ment for the elevation of labor, and the income of wealth. 
It is sufficient briefly to show, that if the English laborers 


166 EMPLOYMENT OF MACHINERY IN AGRICULTURE. 

had been successful in their career, had broken all those in¬ 
genious implements which have aided in rendering British 
agriculture the most perfect in the world, they would not 
have advanced a single step in obtaining more employment, 
or being better paid. 

We will suppose, then, that the farmer has yielded to 
this violence ; that the violence has had the effect which it 
was meant to have upon, him; and that he takes on all the 
hands which were out of employ to thrash and winnow, to 
cut chaff, to plant with the hand instead of with a drill, to 
do all the work, in fact, by the dearest mode instead of the 
cheapest. But he employs just as many people as are ab¬ 
solutely necessary , and no more, for getting his corn ready 
for market, and for preparing, in a slovenly way, for the 
seed-time. In a month or two the victorious destroyers 
find that not a single hand the more of them is really em¬ 
ployed. And why not? There are no drainings going 
forward, the fences and ditches are neglected, the dung 
heap is not turned over, the marl is not fetched from the 
pit; in fact, all those labors are neglected which belong to a 
state of agricultural industry which is brought to perfection. 
The farmer has no f unds to employ in such labors ; he is 
paying a great deal more than he paid before for the same, 
or a less amount of work, because his laborers choose to do 
certain labors with rude tools instead of perfect ones. 

We will imagine that this state of things continues till 
the next spring. All this while the price of grain has been 
rising. Many farmers have ceased to employ capital at all 
upon the land. The neat inventions, which enabled them to 
make a living out of their business, being destroyed, they 
have abandoned the business altogether. A day’s work will 
now no longer purchase as much bread as before. The horse, 
it might be probably found out, was as great an enemy 
as the drill-plow; for, as a horse will do the field-work of 


EMPLOYMENT OF MACHINERY IN AGRICULTURE. 167 

six men, there must be six men employed, without doubt, 
instead of one horse. But how would the fact turn out ? 
If the farmer still went on, in spite of all these losses and 
crosses, he might employ men in the place of horses, but 
not a single man more than the number that would work at 
the price of the keep of one horse. To do the work of each 
horse turned adrift, he would require six men; but he 
would only have about a shilling a day to divide between 
these six—the amount which the horse consumed. 

As the year advanced, and the harvest approached, it 
would be discovered that not one tenth of the land was 
sown; for although the plows were gone, because the horses 
were turned off, and there was plenty of labor for those who 
chose to labor for its own sake, or at the price of horse- 
labor, this amazing employment for human hands, somehow 
or other, would not quite answer the purpose. It has been 
calculated that the power of horses, oxen, etc., employed in 
husbandry in Great Britain is ten times the amount of 
human power. If the human power insisted upon doing all 
the work with the worst tools, the certainty is that not 
even one tenth of the land could be cultivated. Where, 
then, would all this madness end ? In the starvation of the 
laborers themselves, even if they were allowed to eat up all 
they had produced by such imperfect means. They would 
be just in the condition of any other barbarous people, that 
were ignorant of the inventions that constitute the power 
of civilization. They would eat up the little corn which 
they raised themselves, and have nothing to give in ex¬ 
change for clothes, and coals, and candles, and soap, and 
tea, and sugar, and all the many comforts which those who 
are even the worst off are not wholly deprived of. 

All this may appear as an extreme statement; and cer¬ 
tainly we believe that no such evils could have happened; 
for if the laws had been passive, the most ignorant of the 


168 


SPADE AND PLOW HUSBANDRY. 


laborers themselves would, if they had proceeded to carry 
their own principle much further than they had done, see 
in their very excesses the real character of the folly and 
■wickedness to which it had led, and would lead them. 
Why should the laborers of England not have destroyed 
the harrows as well as the drills ? Why leave a machine 
which separates the clods of the earth, and break one which 
puts seed into it ? Why deliberate about a horse-churn, 
when they were resolved against a winnowing-machine ? 
The truth is, these poor men perceived, even in the midst 
of their excesses, the gross deception of the reasons which 
induced them to commit them. Their motive was a natu¬ 
ral, and, if lawfully expressed, a proper impatience, under 
a condition which had certainly many hardships, and those 
hardships in great part produced by the want of profitable 
labor. But in imputing those hardships to machinery, they 
were at once embarrassed when they came to draw distinc¬ 
tions between one sort of machine and another. This 
embarrassment decidedly shows that there were fearful 
mistakes at the bottom of their furious hostility to ma¬ 
chinery. 

It has been said, by persons whose opinions are worthy 
attention, that spade-husbandry is, in some cases, better 
than plow-husbandry; that is, that the earth, under par¬ 
ticular circumstances of soil and situation, may be more 
fitly prepared for the influences of the atmosphere by dig¬ 
ging than by plowing. It is not our business to enter into 
a consideration of this question. The growth of corn is a 
manufacture, in which man employs the chemical proper¬ 
ties of the soil and of the air in conjunction with his own 
labor, aided by certain tools or machines, for the produc¬ 
tion of a crop; and that power, whether of chemistry or 
machinery—whether of the salt, or the lime, or the dung, 
or the guano, which he puts upon the earth, or the spade or 


SPADE AND PLOW HUSBANDRY. 


169 


the plow which he puts into it—that power which does 
the work easiest is necessarily the best, because it diminishes 
the cost of production. If the plow does not do the work 
as well as the spade, it is a less perfect machine; but the 
less perfect machine may be preferred to the more perfect, 
because, taking other conditions into consideration, it is a 
cheaper machine. If the spade, applied in a peculiar man¬ 
ner by the strength and judgment of the man using it, 
more completely turns up the soil, breaks the clods, and 
removes the weeds than the plow, which receives one 
uniform direction from man with the assistance of other 
animal power, then the spade is a more perfect machine 
in its combination with human labor than the plow is, 
worked with a lesser degree of the same combination. But- 
still it may be a machine which can not be used with advan¬ 
tage to the producer, and is therefore not desirable for the 
consumer. All such questions must be determined by the 
cost of production; and that cost in agriculture is made up 
of the rent of land, the profit of capital, and the wages of 
labor—or the portions of the produce belonging to the 
landlord, the farmer, and the laborer. Where rent is 
high, as in the immediate neighborhood of large towns, it 
is important to have the labor performed as carefully as 
possible, and the succession of crops stimulated to the 
utmost extent by manure and labor. It is economy to 
turn the soil to the greatest account, and the land is cul¬ 
tivated as a garden. Where rent is low, it is important to 
have the labor performed upon other principles, because 
one acre cultivated by hand may cost more than two culti¬ 
vated by the plow; and though it may be the truest policy 
to carry the productiveness of the earth as far as possible, 
field cultivation and garden cultivation must have essential 
differences. In one case, the machine called a spade is 
used; in the other, the machine called a plow is employed. 

8 


170 


PRINCIPLE OF MACHINERY. 


The use of the one or the other belongs to practical agri¬ 
culture, and is a question only of relative cost. 

And this brings us to the great principle, of all machin¬ 
ery. A tool of the simplest construction is a machine; a 
machine of the most curious construction is only a compli¬ 
cated tool. There are many cases in the arts, and there 
may be cases in agriculture, in which the human arm and 
hand, with or without a tool, may do work that no machine 
can so well perform. There are processes in polishing, 
and there is a process in copperplate printing, in which 
no substance has been found to stand in the place of the 
human hand. And, if therefore the man with a spade alone 
does a certain agricultural work more completely than a 
man guiding a plow, and a team of horses dragging it 
(which we do not affirm or deny), the only reason for this 
is, that the man with the spade is a better machine than 
the man with the plow and the horses. The most stupid 
man that ever existed is, beyond all comparison, a machine 
more cunningly made by the hands of his Creator, more 
perfect in all his several parts, and with all his parts more 
exquisitely adapted to the regulated movement of the 
whole body, less liable to accidents, and less injured by 
wear and tear, than the most beautiful machine that ever 
was, or ever will be, invented. There is no possibility of 
supplying in many cases a substitute for the simplest move¬ 
ments of a man’s body, by the most complicated move¬ 
ments of the most ingenious machinery. The laws of 
mechanism are the same whether applied to a man, or to a 
lever, or a wheel; but the man has more pliability than any 
combination of wheels and levers. When a porter carries 
a burden, the attitude of the body must accomodate itself 
to the position of the common center of gravity of himself 
and his load. 

To enable us to walk steadily, it is necessary that a per- 


PRINCIPLE OF MACHINERY. 


171 


pendicular line, let fall from the center of gravity, should 
fall within the base of support—as it does when we walk in 
the ordinary manner unincumbered with any burden. But 
if a porter carrying a heavy burden should attempt to stand 
in a perfectly erect position, as in Fig. A, the line let fall 
from the common center of gravity of the man and the load, 
would fall without the base of his support—that is, beyond 
his heels—and as a consequence he would fall backward. 
In order to prevent this, the porter instinctively bends his 
body forward as in Fig. B, and thereby maintains his sta¬ 
bility—since in this position the line let fall from the center 
of gravity of the man and the load falls within the base of 
his support, that is, between his feet. 



What is called the lay figure of the pamter—a wooden 
image with many joints—may be bent here and there; but 
the artist who wanted to draw a porter with a load, could 
not put a hundred weight upon the back of his image and 
keep it upon its legs. The natural machinery by which a 
man even lifts his hand to his head, is at once so complex 
and so simple, so apparently easy and yet so entirely de¬ 
pendent upon the right adjustment of a great many con¬ 
trary forces, that no automaton, or machine imitating the 
actions of man, could ever be made to effect this seemingly 







172 


PRINCIPLE OF MACHINERY. 


simple motion, without showing that the contrivance was 
imperfect—that it was a mere imitation, and a very clumsy 
one. What an easy thing it appears to he for a farming 
man to thrash his corn with a flail; and yet what an expens¬ 
ive arrangement of wheels is necessary to produce the same 
effects with a thrashing machine! The truth is, that the 
man’s arm and the flail form a much more curious machine 
than the other machine of wheels, which does the same 
work; and the real question as regards the value of the two 
machines is, which machine in the greater degree lessens the 
cost of production. 

We state this principle broadly, in our examination into 
the value of machinery in diminishing the cost of produc¬ 
tion ; that the value of a machine depends upon the com¬ 
bined accuracy and economy with which it will complete a 
desired result—the cost of the machine in the first instance, 
and the cost of maintaining it in good order, being taken 
into consideration. A steam-engine is well adapted to 
pump water from a well or cistern; yet no sane man would 
adopt it for the purpose of supplying in this way the wants 
of a small family. The importance of this principle is often 
overlooked in the details of practical life, by thoughtful and 
ingenious men. The patent office at Washington is crowded 
with models of inventions, exhibiting a wonderful amount 
of skill and design, and not one in ten of which have proved 
of any great value to the inventors or the public. The rea¬ 
son of this is simply that they were more expensive and 
complicated, or effected no better purpose than machines 
which preceded them which discharged the same work—or 
it may be they were more expensive in their working than 
unaided hand labor. We have a particular illustration of 
this in an invention made some years since, for folding 
newspapers, as they came from the press, into a form suit¬ 
able for the carriers or for the mails. The mechanism was 


PRINCIPLE OP MACHINERY. 


173 


perfectly adapted to perform the work, which it did with 
almost life-like movement; yet the demand for such me¬ 
chanical labor was so limited, the machine so expensive, 
complicated, and so liable to disarrangement, that it was 
never permanently substituted for manual labor, and there¬ 
fore remained an expensive toy. A machine is not perfect 
because it is made of wheels or cylinders, employs the power 
of the screw or the lever, is driven by wind, or water, or 
steam; but because it best assists the labor of man, by econo¬ 
mizing time or power, or by calling into action some power 
which man does not possess in himself. If we could imagme 
a man entirely dispossessed of the power of rendering the 
forces of nature subservient to himself, we should see the 
feeblest of animal beings. Man has no tools which are a 
part of himself to build houses like the beaver, or cells like 
the bee. He has not even learned from nature to build in¬ 
stinctively, by certain and unchangeable rules, but varies 
continually the form of his structural habitations. Indeed, 
the origin of all our architectural rules and styles, have 
sprung as it were by chance, from the rudest and most im¬ 
perfect models. Whatever chance structures the early and 
uncivilized inhabitants of any country have fashioned from 
the materials afforded them as a shelter and protection from 
the weather, the same structures, with all their prominent 
features, have been perpetuated and reproduced by their 
more enlightened and ojiulent posterity. Thus we find the 
characteristics of the cavern and the mound in the Egyptian 
style of architecture, and the form and structure of the tent 
in the peaked roofs and conical buildings of the Chinese. 
The much admired architecture of the Greeks and the struct¬ 
ure of the Parthenon perpetuates the form of the original 
rude cabin, while the descendants of the Teutonic races still 
reproduce in the arches of their Gothic cathedrals the leafy 
bowers and forest lodges of their ancestors. 


m 


PRINCIPLE OF MACHINERY. 


Man, however, does not need to be instructed instinctively 
like the lower animals. His power is in his mind, and that 
rightly cultivated and developed teaches him to use the 
materials and forces of nature to construct edifices, arch 
tunnels, and build bridges, as surely and as effectively as 
instinct teaches the beaver to construct dams and embank¬ 
ments, or the bee to fashion combs and hexagonal cells. 
Through this power man has been enabled to subject the 
wh*ole physical world to his dominion, and through it alone 
he obtains the prerogative of being able to progress. Ani¬ 
mal instinct of to-day is no better or more improved than it 
was a thousand years ago ; the swallow of to-day labors as 
unremittingly, employs as many materials in the construe-. 
tion of her nest, as did the swallow of three thousand years 
ago, and after all this experience, the structure and design 
of the nest last constructed will have no improvement upon 
the first. If man, however, were to rebuild at the present 
day the great pyramid of Egypt, or the temple of Solomon, 
he would construct better edifices than the originals with 
half the time and a tenth of the expense. Herodotus in¬ 
forms us that one hundred thousand men were constantly 
employed for twenty years in the building of the pyramid 
of Cheops: but all the materials which compose it could 
now be raised from the ground to their present position, by 
the combustion of less than five hundred tons of coal. “The 
instincts of man are faint and feeble, while to reason and 
faith the vistas are boundless.” Wisdom is better than 
strength, “and the more that wisdom spreads the more 
human strength is saved and the more is comfort en¬ 
hanced.” 

To act upon material objects, man arms his weakness with 
tools and machines. As we have before said, tools and 
machines are, in principle, the same. When we strike a 
nail upon the head with a hammer, we avail ourselves of 


MACHINES AND TOOLS. 


175 


a power which we find in nature—the effect produced by 
the concussion of two bodies; when we employ a water¬ 
wheel to beat out a mass of iron with a still larger ham¬ 
mer, we still avail ourselves of the same power. There is 
no difference in the nature of the instruments, although 
we call one a tool, and the other a machine. “ A tool,” 
says Mr. Babbage, “ is usually more simple than a machine ; 
it is generally used with the hand, while a machine is fre¬ 
quently moved by animal or steam-power. The simpler 
machines are often merely one or more tools placed in a 
frame, and acted upon by a moving power.” But neither 
the tool nor the machine has any force of itself. In one 
case the force is in the arm, in the other in the water, the 
steam, or the animal that turns the wheel. The distinctions 
which have been taken between a tool and a machine are 
really so trivial, and the line of separation between one and 
the other is so slight, that we can only speak of both as 
common instruments for adding to the efficiency of labor. 
The simplest application of a principle of mechanics to an 
every-day hand-tool may convert it into what is called a 
machine. Take a three-pronged fork—one of the universal 
tools; fasten a rope to the end of the handle; put a log 
under the fork as a fulcrum; and we have a lever, when 
pulled down by the rope, which will grub up a strongly- 
rooted large shrub in a few minutes. The laborer has called 
in a powerful ally. The tool has become a machine. Both 
machines and tools, however, are intermediate instruments 
to transmit, to modify, or to apply power; and with the 
exception of the power consumed in wearing away the rub¬ 
bing parts—that is, in producing friction—and the small 
portions transmitted to the air, the amount of power trans¬ 
mitted is just equal to that received. 

The chief difference between man in a rude, and man in 
a civilized state of society is, that the one wastes his force, 


176 


CHANGES PRODUCED BY 


■whether natural or acquired—the other economizes, that is, 
saves it. The man in a rude state has very rude instru¬ 
ments ; he, therefore, wastes his force: the man in a civil¬ 
ized state has very perfect ones ; he, therefore, economizes 
it. Should we not laugh at the gardener who went to hoe 
his potatoes with a stick having a short crook at the end ? 
It would be a tool, we should say, fit only for children to 
use. Yet such a tool was doubtless employed by some 
very ancient nations ; for there is an old medal of Syracuse 
which represents this very tool. The common hoe of the 
gardener is a much more perfect tool, because it saves labor. 
Could we have any doubt of the madness of the man who 
would propose that all iron hoes should be abolished, to 
furnish more extensive employment to laborers who should 
be provided only with a crooked stick cut out of a hedge ? 
The truth is, if the working men of the United States had 
no better tools than crooked sticks, they would be in a state 
of actual starvation. One of the chiefs of New Zealand, 
before that country had been colonized, told a missionary 
that his wooden spades were all broken, and he had not an ax 
to make any more; his canoes were all broken and he had not 
a nail or a gimlet to mend them with ; his potato-grounds 
were uncultivated, and he had not a hoe to break them up 
with ; and that, for want of cultivation , he and his people 
would have nothing to eat. This shows the state of a people 
without tools. The man had seen tools, and knew their value. 

About three or four hundred years ago, from the times 
of King Henry IY. to those of King Henry VI., and, in¬ 
deed, long before these reigns, there were often, as we have 
already mentioned, grievous famines in England, because 
the land was very wretchedly cultivated. Men, women, 
and children perished of actual hunger by thousands ; and 
those who survived kept themselves alive by eating the 
bark of trees, acorns, and pig-nuts. There were no machines 


MACHINERY IN ENGLAND. 


177 


then; but the condition of the laborers was so bad,- that 
they could not be kept to work upon the land without those 
very severe and tyrannical laws noticed in Chapter IX., 
which actually forbade them to leave the station in which 
they were born as laborers, for any hope of bettering their 
condition in the towns. There were not laborers enough 
to till the ground, for they worked without any skill, with 
weak plows and awkward hoes. They were just as badly 
off as some of the people of Portugal and Spain, who are 
miserably poor, because they have bad machines ; or, as the 
Chinese laborers who have scarcely any machines, and are 
the poorest in the world. 

Indeed, it would be difficult to find a more striking illus¬ 
tration of the miserable condition of a populous community 
laboring without machinery,' than is exhibited to us in the 
case of the Chinese. The industry and patient labor of 
these jieople are proverbial, and far superior to that of the 
white races of Europe and America, and yet the great 
majority of the three hundred and sixty millions inhabiting 
the vast empire of China, are obliged to toil during the 
whole period of their lives, for the scantiest food and the 
simplest raiment. Gutzlaff, the missionary, tells us, that 
millions upon millions of Chinese are ready to work, simply 
for their bare subsistence upon rice. In China, therefore, 
there is not, and can not be accumulation; no values de¬ 
voted to the establishment of schools, or for the endow¬ 
ment of hospitals for the sick or infirm; the poor are left 
to starve; the sick have no efficient remedies; infanticide 
is legalized. The poor, furthermore, have not only the 
misfortune to be poor, but they have that additional bur¬ 
den, which M. Say describes as a greater misfortune than 
mere poverty, “ they are surrounded by those only who are 
as poor as themselves.” The American farmer, on the 
contrary, with a less amount of labor, and with no superior 

8 * 


178 CHANGES PRODUCED BY MACHINERY IN ENGLAND. 

advantage either of soil or climate, is enabled not only to 
consume more and better food than the Chinese, and wear 
better and more costly clothing, but also to accumulate. 
The difference in result which the two have attained to, is 
to be attributed solely to the fact, that the one depends 
mainly upon his hands, or the rudest and most imperfect 
implements, the experience of former generations and of 
cotemporaries being in a great measure denied to him, 
from the want of books or mediums of intelligence, while 
the other has called to his aid the most perfect machin¬ 
ery, and the results of accumulated experimentation and 
practice. 

In the reigns of Henry IY. and Y. of England, there 
was plenty of labor to be performed, but the tools were so 
bad, and the want of agricultural knowledge so universal, 
that the land was never half cultivated, and therefore all 
classes were poorly off. They had little corn to exchange 
for manufactures, and in consequence the laborer was badly 
clothed, badly lodged, and had a very indifferent share of 
the scanty crop which he raised. The condition of the 
laborer would have proceeded from bad to worse, had 
agricultural improvement not gone forward to improve the 
general condition of all classes. Commons were inclosed; 
arable land was laid down to pasture; sheep were kept 
upon grass-land where wretched crops had before been 
growing. This was superseding labor to a great extent, 
and much clamor was raised about this plan, and probably 
a large amount of real distress was produced. But mark 
the consequence. Although the money wages of labor 
were lowered, because there were more laborers in the 
market, the real amount of wages was higher, for better 
food was created by pasturage at a cheaper rate. The 
laborer then got meat who had never tasted it before; and 
when the use of animal food became general, there were 


NEW ZEALANDERS IN ENGLAND. 179 

cattle and com enough to be exchanged for manufactured 
goods, and the laborer got a coat and a pair of shoes, who 
had formerly gone half naked. Step by step have the 
people of England been advancing in the same direction 
for two centuries; and the agricultural industry of Great 
Britain is now as much directed to the production of meat, 
milk, butter, cheese, as to the growth of corn and other 
cereals. The once simple husbandry of our ancestors has 
become a scientific manufacture. 

There may be some persons still who object to machin¬ 
ery, because, having grown up surrounded with the bene¬ 
fits it has conferred upon them, without understanding the 
source of these benefits, they are something like the child 
who sees nothing but evil in a rainy day. The people of 
New Zealand very rarely came to us; but when they did 
come they were acute enough to perceive the advantages 
which machinery has conferred upon us, and the great 
distance in point of comfort between their state and ours, 
principally for the reason that they have no machinery, 
while we have a great deal. One of these men burst into 
tears when he saw a rope-walk; because he perceived the 
immense superiority which the process of spinning ropes 
gave us over his own countrymen. He was ingenious 
enough, and so were many of his fellow islanders, to have 
twisted threads together after a rude fashion; but he knew 
that he was a long way off from making a rope. The New 
Zealander saw the spinner in the rope-walk, moving away 
from a wheel, and gradually forming the hemp round his 
body into a strong cord. By the operation of the wheel he 
is enabled so to twine together a number of separate fibers, 
that no one fiber can be separated from the mass, but forms 
part of a hard and compact body. A series of these opera¬ 
tions produces a cable, such as may hold a barge at anchor. 
The twisted fibers of hemp become yarn; many yarns be- 


180 


NEW ZEALANDERS IN ENGLAND. 


come a strand; three strands make a rope; and three ropes 
make a cablet, or small cable. By carefully untwisting all 
its separate parts, the principle upon which it is constructed 
is evident. The operation is a complex one; and the rope- 
maker is a skilled workman. Rope-making machinery is 
now carried much further. But the wheel that twisted the 
hemp into yarn was a prodigy to the inquiring savage. 



ANALYSIS OP A CABLE. 


Another of these New Zealanders, and he was a very 
shrewd and intelligent person, carried back to his country 
from England, a small hand-mill for grinding corn, which 
he prized as the greatest of all earthly possessions. And 
well might he prize it! He had no machine for converting 
corn into meal, but two stones, such as were used in the 
remote parts of the highlands of Scotland some years ago. 
And to beat the grain into meal by these two stones (a ma- 




LABOR AND ITS RESULTS. 


181 


chine, remember, however imperfect) would occupy the 
labor of one fourth of his family, to procure subsistence for 
the other three fourths. The ancient Greeks, three thou¬ 
sand years ago, had improved upon the machinery of the 
hand-stones, for they had hand-mills. But Homer, the old 
Greek poet, describes the unhappy condition of the slave 
who was always employed in using this mill. The groans 
of the slave were unheeded by those who consumed the 
produce of his labor; and such was the necessity for meal, 
that the women were compelled to turn these mills when 
there were not slaves enough taken in war to perform this 
irksome office. There was plenty of labor then to be per¬ 
formed, even with the machinery of the hand-mill; but the 
slaves and the women did not consider that labor was a 
good in itself, and therefore they bitterly groaned under it. 
By and by the understandings of men found out that water 
and wind would do the same work that the slaves and the 
women had done; and that a large quantity of labor was at 
liberty to be employed for other purposes. Hoes any one 
ask if society was in a worse state in consequence? We 
answer, labor is worth nothing without results. Its value 
is only to be measured by what it produces. If, in a coun¬ 
try where hand-mills could be had, the people were to go 
on beating grain between two stones, all would pronounce 
them fools, because they could obtain an equal quantity of 
meal with a much less expenditure of labor. Some have 
a general prejudice against that sort of machinery which 
does its work with very little human assistance; it is not 
quite so certain, therefore, that they would agree that a 
people would be equal fools to use the hand-mill when they 
could employ the wind-mill or the water-mill. But we be¬ 
lieve they would think that, if flour could drop from heaven, 
or be had like water by whoever chose to seek it, it would 
be the height of folly to have stones, or hand-mills, or water- 


182 


HAND-MILLS AND WATER-MILLS. 


mills, or wind-mills, or any machine whatever for manufac¬ 
turing flour. Does any one ever think of manufacturing 
water ? The cost of water is only the cost of the labor 
which brings it to the place in which it is consumed. Yet 
this admission overturns all objections against machinery. 

We admit that it is desirable to obtain a thing with no la¬ 
bor at all / can we therefore doubt that it is desirable to 
obtain it with the least possible labor f The only difference 
between no labor and a little labor is the difference of the 
cost of production. And the only difference between little 
labor and much labor is precisely the same. In procuring 
any thing that administers to his necessities, man makes 
an exchange of his labor for the thing produced, and 
the less he gives of his labor the better of course is his 
bargain. 

To return to the hand-mill and the water-mill. An ordi¬ 
nary water-mill for grinding corn will grind about one hun¬ 
dred and twenty bushels a day. To do the same work with 
a hand-mill would require one hundred and fifty men. At 
fifty cents a day the daily wages of these men would amount 
to $ 75 , which, reckoning six working days, is $430 a w r eek, 
or $ 22,360 a year. The rent and taxes of a mill would be 
about $800 a year. The cost of machinery would be cer¬ 
tainly more for the hand-mills than the water-mill, therefore 
w T e will not take the cost of machinery into calculation. To 
produce, therefore, one hundred and twenty bushels of flour 
by hand we should pay $75 ; by the water-mill we should 
pay $2 56 : that is, we should pay nearly thirty times as 
much by the one process as by the other. The actual sav¬ 
ing is something about the ordinary price of the flour in the 
market; that is, the consumer, if the corn were ground by 
hand, would pay double what he pays now for flour ground 
at a mill. 

But if the system of grinding corn by hand were a very 


HAND-MILLS AND WATER-MILLS. 


183 


recent system of society, and the introduction of so great a 
benefit as the water-mill had all at once displaced the hand- 
grinders, as the spinning machinery displaced the spinning- 
wheel, what must become, it is said, of the one hundred and 
fifty men who earned the $75 a day, of which sum the con¬ 
sumer has now got $72 44 in his pocket ? They must go to 
other work. And what is to set them to that work ? The 
same $72 44; which, being saved in the price of flour, gives 
the poor man, as well as the rich man, more animal food and 
fuel; a greater quantity of clothes, and of a better quality, 
a better house than his hand-laboring ancestors used to 
have, much as his house might yet be improved; better 
furniture, and more of it; domestic utensils; and books. 
To produce these things there must be more laborers em¬ 
ployed than before. The quantity of labor is, therefore, 
not diminished, while its productiveness is much increased. 
It is as if every man among us had become suddenly much 
stronger and more industrious. The machines labor for us, 
and are yet satisfied without either food or clothing. They 
increase all our comforts, and they consume none them¬ 
selves. The hand-mills are not grinding, it is true: but the 
ships are sailing that bring us foreign produce; the looms 
are moving that give us more clothes ; the potter, and glass- 
maker, and joiner are each employed to add to our house¬ 
hold goods; we are each of us elevated in the scale of so¬ 
ciety ; and all these things happen because machinery has 
diminished the cost of production. 

The water-mill is, however, a simple machine compared 
with some mills of modern times. We are familiar with the 
village-mill. As we walk by the side of some gentle stream, 
we hear at a distance the murmur of water and the growl 
of wheels. We come upon the old mill, such as it has stood 
for successive generations. No laborer quarrels with the 
mill. It is an object almost of his love, for he knows that 


184 


HAND-MILLS AND WATER-MILLS. 


it cheapens his food. It seems a part of the natural scenery 
amid which he has been reared. 

But let a more efficient machine for grinding corn be in¬ 
troduced into Great Britain, as is in operation at Roches¬ 
ter, or Pittsburg, and the English peasant would think that 
the working millers would be ruined. And yet the mills at 



OLD ENGLISH MILL. 


Rochester or Pittsburg make flour cheaper in England 
through that competition there which forces onward im¬ 
provement in mill machinery; and by increasing the con¬ 
sumption of flour calls into action more superintending labor 
for its production. One particular mill at Pittsburg pro¬ 
duces 500 barrels of flour per day, each containing 196 
pounds, and employs the services of forty persons. It pro¬ 
duces cheap flour by saving labor in all its processes. It 
stands on the bank of a navigable river—a high building 
into which the corn for grinding must be removed from 
boats alongside. Is the grain necessary to produce these 



MILLS AT PITTSBURG AND ROCHESTER. 


185 


500 barrels of flour per day, amounting to 98,000 pounds, 
carried by man’s labor to the topmost floor of that high 
mill ? It is raised by an elevator consisting of an endless 
band, to which are fixed a series of metal cans revolving in 
a long wooden trough, which is lowered through the re¬ 
spective hatchways into the boats, and is connected at its 
upper end with the building where its belt is driven. The 
lower end of the trough is open, and as the endless band re¬ 
volves, six or eight men shovel the grain into the ascending 
cans, which raise it so rapidly that 4000 bushels can be 
lifted and deposited in the mill in an hour. The drudging 
and unskilled laborers who would have toiled in carrying 
up the grain are free to do some skilled labor, of which the 
amount required is constantly increasing; and the cost 
saved by the elevator goes toward the great universal fund, 
out of which more labor and better labor are to find the 
means of employment. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


PRESENT AND FORMER CONDITION OF ENGLAND.—PROGRESS OF CULTIVATION.—EVIL 
INFLUENCE OF FEUDALISM.—STATE OF AGRICULTURE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
—MODERN IMPROVEMENTS.—CULTIVATION.—AVERAGE CONSUMPTION OF WHEAT 
IN GREAT BRITAIN.—IMPLEMENTS OF AGRICULTURE NOW IN USE.—NUMBER OF 
AGRICULTURALISTS IN GREAT BRITAIN. 

It is the remark of English tourists, as they travel from 
the sea-coast to London, that the country is a garden. It 
has taken nineteen centuries to make it such a garden. The 
marshes in which the legions of Julius Caesar had to fight, 
up to their loins, with the Britons, to whom these swamps 
were habitual, are now drained. The dense woods in which 
the Druids worshiped are now cleared. Populous towns 
and cheerful vilages offer themselves on every side. Wher¬ 
ever the eye reaches, there is cultivation. Instead of a few 
scattered families painfully earning a subsistence by the 
chase, or by tilling the land without the knowledge and the 
instruments that science has given to the aid of manual 
labor—that cultivation is carried on with a systematic 
routine that improves the fertility of a good season, and 
diminishes the evils of a bad. Instead of the country being 
divided among hostile tribes, who have little communica¬ 
tion, the whole territory is covered with a network of 
roads, and canals, and navigable rivers, and rail-roads, 
through which means there is a universal market, and 
wherever there is demand there is instant supply. Rightly 
considered, there is no branch of production which has so 
largely benefitted by the power of knowledge as that of 


INFLUENCE OF FEUDALISM. 


m 


agriculture. It was ages before the great physical changes 
were accomplished which are now beheld on every side; 
and England is still in a state of progress toward the per¬ 
fection of those results which an over-ruling Providence 
had in store for the human race, in the gradual manifesta¬ 
tion of those discoveries which have already so changed our 
condition and the condition of the world. 

The history of cultivation in Great Britain is full of in¬ 
struction as regards the inefficiency of mere traditional 
practice and the slowness with which scientific improvement 
establishes its dominion. It is no part of our plan to follow 
out this history ; but a few scattered facts may not be with¬ 
out their value. 

The oppressions of tenants that were perpetrated under 
the feudal system, when ignorant lords of manors impeded 
production by every species of extortion, may be estimated 
by one or two circumstances. There can be no doubt that 
the prosperity of a tenant is the best security for the land¬ 
lord’s due share of the produce of the land. Without ma¬ 
nure, in some form or other, the land can not be fertilized; 
the landlords knew this, but they required to have a 
monopoly of the fertility. Their tenants kept a few sheep, 
but the landlords reserved to themselves the exclusive privi¬ 
lege of having a sheepfold; so that the little tenants could 
not fold their own sheep on their own lands, but were 
obliged to let them be folded with those of their lord, or 
pay a fine. The flour-mill was the exclusive property of the 
manorial lord, whether lay or ecclesiastical; and whatever 
the distance, or however bad the road, the tenant could 
grind nowhere but at the lord’s mill. No doubt the rent 
of land was exceedingly low, and the lord was obliged to 
maintain himself and his dependents by adding something 
considerable to his means by many forms of legalized extor¬ 
tion. The rent of land was so low because the produce was 


188 


INFLUENCE OF FEUDALISM. 


inconsiderable, to an extent which will be scarcely compre¬ 
hended by modern husbandmen. In the law-commentary 
called “ Fleta,” written about the end of the thirteenth cen¬ 
tury, the author says, the farmer will be a loser unless corn 
be dear, if he obtains from an acre of wheat only three 
times the seed sown. He calculated the low produce at six 
bushels an acre: the average produce was perhaps little 
higher; we have distinct records of its being no higher a 
century afterward. In 1390, at Hawsted, near Bury, the 
produce of the manor-farm was forty-two quarters of wheat, 
or three hundred and thirty-six bushels, from fifty-seven 
acres; and upon an average of three years sixty-one acres 
produced only seventy quarters, or five hundred and sixty 
bushels. Sir John Cullum, who collected these details from 
the records of his own property, says, “ no particular dear¬ 
ness of corn followed, so that probably, those very scanty 
crops were the usual and ordinary effects of the imperfect 
husbandry then practiced.” The husbandry was so imper¬ 
fect that an unfavorable season for corn-crops, which in our 
days would have been compensated by a greater production 
of green crops, was followed by famine. When the ground 
was too hard, the seed could not be sown for want of the 
sufficient machine-power of plow and harrow. The chief 
instrument used was as weak and imperfect as the plow 

which we see depicted in 
Egyptian monuments, and 
which is still found in parts 
of Syria. The Oriental 
plowman was with such an 
instrument obliged to bend 
ancient Egyptian plow. over his plow, and load it 
with all the weight of his 
body, to prevent it merely scratching the ground instead 
of turning it up. His labor was great and his care inces- 








AGRICULTURE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 


189 



1. The plow. 2. The pole. 8. Shares (various). 
4. Handle. 5. Yokes. 6. Ox-goad. 


sant, as we may judge from the words of our Saviour— 
“No man having put his hand to the plow, and looking 
back, is fit for the king¬ 
dom of God.” Latimer, 
the Protestant martyr, 
in his “ Sermon of the 
plow,” in which he 
holds that “preaching 
of the Gospel is one of 
God’s plow-works, and 
the preacher is one of 
God’s plowmen,” describes the labor upon which he raises 
his parallel: “For as the plowman first setteth forth his 
plow, and then tilleth his land and breaketh it in furrows, 
and sometimes ridgeth it up again; and at another time 
harroweth it and clotteth it, and sometimes dungeth it and 
hedgeth it, diggeth it and weedeth it, purgeth it and mak- 
eth it clean—so the prelate, the preacher, hath many divers 
offices to do.” 

Latimer was the son of an English farmer, and knew 
practically what he was talking about. He knew that the 
land would not bear an adequate crop without all this va¬ 
rious and often-repeated labor. And yet the labor was so 
inadequately performed that a few years after he had 
preached this famous sermon, we are told by a credible 
writer of the times of Queen Mary—William Bulleyn, a 
physician and botanist—that in 1555 “bread was so scant, 
insomuch that the plain poor people did make very much 
of acorns.” A few years onward a great impulse was given 
to husbandry through various causes, among which the in¬ 
creased abundance of the precious metals through the open¬ 
ing of the mines of South America had no inconsiderable 
influence. The industrious spirit of England was fairly 
roused from a long sleep in the days of Queen Elizabeth. 














190 AGRICULTURE IN' THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 

Harrison, in his “ Description of Britain,” says, “ The soil 
is even now in these our days grown to be much more fruit¬ 
ful than it hath been in times past.” This historian of man¬ 
ners saw the reason. “ In times past” there was “ idle and 
negligent occupation;” but when he wrote (1593), “our 
countrymen are grown to be more painful, skillful, and 
careful, through recompense of gain.” The cultivators 
had their share of the benefits of cultivation; they had 
their “ recompense of gain.” Capital had been spread 
among the class of tenants ; they were no longer miserable 
dependents upon their grasping lords. For a century or 
so onward, the improvements in agriculture were not very 
decided. The rotation of crops was unknown ; and winter 
food for sheep and cattle not being raised, the greater 
number were slaughtered and salted at Martinmas.* The 
fleeces were wretchedly small, for the few sheep nibbled 
the stubble and commons bare till the spring-time. The 
carcases of beef were not half their present size. At the 
beginning of the last century the turnip cultivation was in¬ 
troduced, and in the middle of the century the horse-hoeing 
husbandry came into use. The agricultural revolution was 
fairly begun a hundred years ago; and yet, for many years, 
the value of manure was very imperfectly understood, and 
even up to our own time it has been wasted in every direc¬ 
tion. There is given in Sir John Cullum’s book, an abstract 
of the lease of an English farm in 1753. The tenant was 
to be allowed two shillings for every load of manure that 
he brought from a town about four miles distant. During 
twenty-one years the landlord was charged with only one 
load. At that period all agriculture was in a great degree 
traditional. There were no agricultural societies—no spe¬ 
cial journals for this great branch of national industry. 
Arthur Young applied his shrewd and observing talent to 
* The eleventh of November. 


CONSUMPTION OP WHEAT. 


191 


the dissemination of farming knowledge; but the agricul¬ 
tural mind, with very few exceptions, rejected book-knowl¬ 
edge as vain and impertinent. Chemistry applied to the 
soil was as unknown to the cultivator as the perturbations 
of the planets. Geology was an affair of conjecture, and 
had assumed no form of utility. Meteorology entered into 
no farmer’s mode of estimating the comparative value of 
one site and another. Sir John Cullum made a most 
curious and instructive estimate of the science of the 
farmers in the County of Suffolk, in 1784, when he wrote : 
“ The farm-houses are in general well furnished with every 
convenient accommodation. Into many of them a barom¬ 
eter has of late years been introduced—a most useful instru¬ 
ment for the husbandman, and which is mentioned here as 
a striking instance of the intelligence of this period .” 

It is estimated by some statists that the average con¬ 
sumption of wheat for each individual of the population of 
Great Britain is eight bushels. Others estimate that con¬ 
sumption at six bushels. It will be sufficient for a broad 
view of the increase of production in Great Britain, as com¬ 
pared with the increase of population, to take the consump¬ 
tion at eight bushels, or a quarter of wheat per head. In 
the ten years from 1801 to 1810, deducting an annual aver¬ 
age of 600,000 quarters of foreign wheat and flour imported, 
the population in 1811 being 11,769,725, the number fed 
by wheat of home growth was somewhat above 11,000,000. 
In the ten years from 1841 to 1850, deducting an an¬ 
nual average of 3,000,000 quarters of foreign wheat and 
flour, the population in 1851 being 21,121,967, the num¬ 
ber fed by wheat of home growth was somewhat above 
18,000,000. The productive power of Great Britain had 
increased, in the course of fifty years, to the enormous ex¬ 
tent of giving subsistence, in one article of agricultural 
produce alone, to 7,000,000 of people. The population in 


192 


AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. 


1751 was estimated at little more than 7,000,000. It has 
trebled in a century; and we may be perfectly sure that 
the production of the land has far more than trebled in that 
period. The probablity is that it has quadrupled; for there 
is no doubt that the great bulk of the people are better fed 
than in 1751, when rye-bread was the common sustenance 
of the great body of laborers throughout England. 

Let us endeavor to take a rapid view of the implements 
of agriculture in common use at the present time—imple¬ 
ments which have been described as “ intended not to 
bring about new conditions of soil, nor to yield new pro¬ 
ducts of any kind, but to do with more certainty and 
cheapness what had been done hitherto by employing the 
rude implements of former centuries.” 

The object of agriculture is the conversion of mineral into 
organized matter, through the agency of the plants which 
are cultivated. The soil is the factory in which these 
changes principally take place, and one of the conditions 
necessary is contact with the atmosphere. To effect this, 
mechanical means are needed to open up and divide the 
soil: and in this respect the plow was early found to be a 
more efficient tool than either the spade or the pick, which 
are lnnited to manual labor. Notwithstanding the great 
antiquity and importance of the plow, it being the generally 
recognized symbol of agriculture, it has, until within a com¬ 
paratively recent period, undergone fewer changes than 
most other implements of such universal use. 

At the commencement of the present century, the plow 
and the harrow were almost the only instruments used in 
tillage. Bloomfield, an English poet, thus describes them: 

“ The plows move heavily, and strong the soil, 

And clogging harrows with augmented toil 
Dive deep.’ 

The old English plow used to be drawn with four horses; 


AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. 


193 


and they were needed. It was a cumbersome instrument, 
mainly adapted to heavy clay soils. In the United States, 
the plow once most generally in use, was known as the 
old “ Carey Plow.” It had a clumsy wrought-iron share, 
wooden land-side and standard, and wooden mold-board, 
plated over with a piece of tin, sheet-iron, or old saw-plate, 
requiring the strength of a man to hold it by the two pins 
in its upright handles, and at least double the strength of 
team now required to do the same work. Then there was 
another plow, called the “ Bar Side Plow,” a flat bar form¬ 
ing the land-side, with a thick clump of iron like the half of 
a lance-head for the point, in the top of which the coulter 
was clumsily locked, and a wooden mold-board, without 
any pretensions to making a fit with the iron part. The 
plow which the Chinese use is similar, and the effect is the 
same as if a man should hold a sharp pointed shovel, back 
up, with an angle of forty-five degrees, and it should then 
be drawn forward with the point in the ground. 

In Europe the plows have undergone but little change for 
centuries. The plow most generally used in France is the 
old Roman plow. 

In the Southern United States, one of the rudest of all 
plows, called the “ Shovel-plow,” is in general use. It is 
usually made of a rough hewn stick for a beam, into which 
another stick is framed in, upon the end of which a piece 
of iron, much resembling a sharp-pointed shovel, is fastened. 
Two rough handles, pinned to the side of the beam, and 
supported at the proper angle by a wooden support, with a 
draft iron, or a piece of bark, in the loop of raw-hide at the 
forward end of the beam, completes the tool by which more 
than half the cotton-fields of the South are plowed. 

The first great improvements in the construction of the 
plow, took place in the latter part of the eighteenth cen¬ 
tury, and are principally due to the efforts of English me- 

9 


194 


AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. 


chanics. In 1720, Joseph Foljambe, of England, obtained 
a patent for a plow, in which the mold-board and land-side 
were of wood, sheathed with iron plates, the share and coul¬ 
ter bein^ of wrought-iron, with steel edges. This plow was 
intended to be worked by one man and two horses, and to 
turn over an acre or an acre and a quarter a day. 

The first cast-iron mold-board we find mentioned w as in¬ 
vented by James Small, a Scotchman, in 1740. He still 
continued to use the wrought-iron share, cast-iron being 
first applied for that purpose in 1785. An English farmer 
afterward added the land-side of cast-iron. 

The first cast-iron plow in America was made by Charles 
Newbold, of Burlington, New Jersey, who obtained a 
patent for a plow combining the mold-board, share, and 
land-slide, all in one casting. Great as these improvements 
were upon the old wooden plows, such was the prejudice 
against them—some even affirming that cast-iron poisoned 
the ground, and prevented the growth of crops; that the 



THE MODERN PLOW. 


inventor after spending a large sum of money, gave up the 
invention in despair. In 1798, Thomas Jefferson wrote a 
treatise upon the form of the mold-board, insisting that it 
should be constructed upon scientific principles. Other in¬ 
ventors gradually gave their attention to the subject, and 
by degrees the various improvements which have made the 
plow a nearly perfect implement were effected. 






AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. 


195 


“ As it is now constructed, the form of the plow is ar¬ 
ranged upon strictly mathematical principles, which by its 
mold-board raises each slice of earth from its flat position, 
through an upright one, and lays it over, half inclined on 
the preceding one. The perfect instrument produces the 
skillful laborer. A good plowman Mill set up a pole a quar 
ter of a mile distant, and trace a furrow so true up to that 
point, that no eye can detect any divergence from absolute 
straightness.” 

The agriculture of England having at the present attained 
to a degree of perfection which admits of no waste, has de¬ 
prived the country of much of its picturesque and ancient 
beauty. Bloomfield thus describes the repose of the plow¬ 
man after he had driven his team to the boundary of his 
furrow: 

“ Welcome green headland! firm beneath his feet; 

Welcome the friendly bank’s refreshing seat; 

There, warm with toil, his panting horses browse 
Their sheltering canopy of pendent houghs.” 

Gone is the green headland; gone the cowslip bank; 
gone the pendent boughs. The furrow runs up to the ex- 
tremest point of a vast field without hedges. Gone, too, 
are the green slips between the lands of common fields. 
These adornments of the landscape are inconsistent with 
the demands of a population that doubles itself in half a 
century. The laborer has small rest, and the soil has less. 
Under the old husbandry, before the culture of the green 
crops, one third of the arable land was always idle. Two 
years of grain crop, and one year of fallow, was the invari¬ 
able rule. The land is worked differently now. The plow 
and the cultivator turn up and pulverize the soil, but they 
do it much more effectually than of old. 

We proceed to “ Instruments used in the Cultivation of 
Crops.” Mr. Pusey in liis report on the agricultural imple- 


196 


AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. 


ments of the Great English Exhibition, tells us that “ the 
sower has almost vanished from southern England, driven 
out by a complicated machine, the drill, depositing the 
seed in rows, and drawn by several horses.” We miss the 
sower; and the next generation may require a commentary 
upon the many religious and moral images that arose out 
of his primitive occupation. When James Montgomery 
says of the seed of knowledge, “ broadcast it o’er the 
land,” some may one day ask what “ broadcast” means. 
But the drill does not only sow the seed; it can also de- 



CULTIVATOR. 


posit artificial manures for the reception of the seed. The 
bones that were thrown upon the dunghill are now crushed. 
The mountains of fertilizing matter that have been accu¬ 
mulated through ages on islands of the Pacific, from the 
deposits of birds resting in their flight upon rocks of that 
ocean, and which we call guano, now form a great article 
of commerce. Superphosphate of lime, prepared from 
bones, or from the animal remains of geological ages, is 
another of the precious dusts which the drill economizes. 
There are even drills for dropping water combined with 
superphosphate. “ Such,” says Mr. Pusey, “ is the elastic 
yet accurate pliability with which, in agriculture, mechan¬ 
ism has seconded chemistry.” 


AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. 


197 


Of instruments for gathering the harvest, the most import¬ 
ant are the reaping-machines. For these contrivances, up 
ward of one hundred patents have been issued by the Patent 
Office at Washington, and the number sold in the United 
States during the past season (1855) has been immense. 
Indeed without the use of these machines, it would be 
impossible in many sections of our country to save the 
crops, through the want of laborers at the proper season. 
In Great Britain, where the weather is most uncertain, 
they are also invaluable for collecting and preserving the 
crops. In addition to the reapers, we have mowing ma¬ 
chines capable when actuated by two horses of cutting 
an acre in sixty minutes, hay rakes for raking, and lastly, 
machines for pitching and spreading the grass when cut. 
Thus the farmer, with such helps, can wait until the dew 
has disappeared from his fields, and long before the sun 
has mounted to its noon-day height, cut and arrange an 
abundant day’s work. 



Machines for preparing grain for market are among the 
most important inventions of modern times. Here, indeed, 
agriculture assumes many of the external features of a 





198 


AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. 



manufacture. The power of steam may be here advan¬ 
tageously applied. In England, on many of the large 
farms, there is a permanent steam-power, and most effi¬ 
cient has it been found. On smaller farms, movable 
steam-engines are often employed, and in some cases the 
engine is owned by the community, and the power rented 
to those who wish for it. In the United States, steam as 
an adjunct to agricultural labor has not yet been introduced 
to any considerable extent. Thrashing-machines are driven 
by horse-power, and the machines being movable, the 
grain is often thrashed at once in the field instead of being 
carried into the barn. 


A THRASHING-MACHINE. 

Rarely, now, can the beautiful description of Cowper be 
realized: 

“ Thump after thump resounds the constant flail 
That seems to swing uncertain, and yet falls 
Full on the destined ear.” 








AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. 


190 


Few now wield that ancient instrument. Nor is the chaff 
now separated from the corn by the action of the wind, 
which was called winnowing, but we have the winnowing- 
macliines, by which four hundred bushels of wheat can at 
once be taken from the thrashing-machine, and prepared 
for market in five hours. At the New York Crystal Palace, 
in 1853, a machine was exhibited, which was able not only 
to thrash and winnow the wheat, but which also measured 
the grain, placed it in bags ready for market, and recorded 
accurately the quantity measured—all by a continuous oper¬ 


ation. Contrast this 
achievement with the 
ancient method, still 



followed in some east¬ 


ern countries, of thrash¬ 
ing grain by means 
of the feet of cattle. 


THRASHING BY CATTLE. 


One most interesting result which has followed the construc¬ 
tion and general use of improved thrashing and winnowing- 
machines in the United States, has recently been pointed out 
by a distinguished American agriculturalist—which is, that 
since the introduction of these machines, some of the 
choicest varieties of wheat have been cultivated, which pre¬ 
viously were so difficult of separation by hand-thrashing as 
to be excluded from the best wheat-growing districts of the 
country. Machines of this character are now in existence, 
which are capable of performing, with the help of a single 
horse, the labor of fifteen men. Some now urge that if a 
thrashing-machine will perform the labor of fifteen men, that 
fifteen men are thrown out of employment. But experience 
teaches that no such result ever follows ; for such machines 
increase the requirement for labor by increasing the amount 
of land that can be cultivated. Some years ago one hun¬ 
dred acres in wheat was considered a large field, but there 


200 


AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. 


are now farmers at the West who have fields of five hundred 
or one thousand acres. Without machinery, the cultivation 
of such extensive tracts could not he undertaken; and there 
is still another proof that these machines have not lessened 
the demand for labor, and that is, that higher wages have 
been paid during the last few years in the agricultural dis¬ 
tricts than ever before. 

But machinery does not end here. The food of stock is 
prepared by machines. First, there is the turnip-cutter. 
Our “ Farmer’s Boy” will tell us how his sheep and kine 
were fed in the winter fifty years ago : 

“ No tender ewe can break her nightly fast, 

Nor heifer strong begin the cold repast, 

Till Giles with ponderous beetle foremost go, 

And scattering splinters fly at every blow; 

When, pressing round him, eager for the prize, 

From their mixed breath warm exhalations rise.” 

We are told that “ lambs fed with a turnip-cutter would be 
worth more at the end of a winter by two dollars a-head 
than lambs fed on whole turnips.” The hay-cutter is a ma¬ 
chine equally valuable. 

The true principle upon which agriculture, as well as 
every other branch of industry, can only be profitably con¬ 
ducted, is, that machinery must be substituted for human 
muscles and strength to the greatest practicable extent. 
As a matter of profit, irrespective of all personal comfort, 
this conclusion is imperative. Man by the sweat of his 
brow alone shall eat bread. From this decree of his Cre¬ 
ator there is no escape. Yet, nevertheless, there is much 
of good sense in the following remark which prefaced a re¬ 
cent report of an agricultural committee in New York. 
“ In the doctrine of eternal hard work your committee do 
not believe.” A most striking illustration of the effect of 


NUMBER OF AGRICULTURISTS IN BRITAIN. 201 

improved systems of agriculture is given by M. Passy, of 
France, in his late work (Systeme de Culture). He states, 
as the result of careful investigation, that in those countries 
of Europe in which agriculture has improved, “ the soils 
that in past times were regarded as too poor to merit con¬ 
tinued and regular cultivation are now regarded as the 
bestand after describing the course of things in this 
respect in Belgium and France, says that “ hi England it is 
an established fact that in various counties the lands de¬ 
nominated good are farmed at twenty-two to twenty-five 
shillings per acre, while those formerly regarded as poor let 
for thirty to thirty-five shillings.” 

According to the census of 1851, the total population of 
Great Britain is 20,959,477—in round numbers, 21,000,000. 
In the “Return of Occupations,” one half of this entire 
population is found under the family designation—such as 
child at home, child at school, wife, daughter, sister, niece, 
with no particular occupation attributed to them. They 
are important members of the State; they are growing 
into future producers, or they preside over the household 
comforts, without which there is little systematic industry. 
But they are not direct producers. Of the other half of the 
entire population, about one fifth belong to the class of cul¬ 
tivators, namely, 1,779,003 men ; 229,078 women. 

This total (in which we omit the farmers’ wives and 
daughters, amounting to about 240,000) shows that one 
fifth of the working population provide food, with the ex¬ 
ception of foreign produce, for themselves and families and 
the other four fifths of the population. Such a result could 
not be accomplished without the appliances of scientific 
power which we have described in this chapter. 

The census of the United States for 1850, shows that 
nearly the same ratio exists in this country between the 
number of persons engaged in agricultural pursuits and the 


202 


NUMBER OF AGRICULTURISTS IN BRITAIN. 


entire population as in Great Britain—the entire population 
of the United States being 23,263,483, and the number of 
agriculturalists, 2,400,583. 

In the early stages of society, a very small proportion of 
labor could be spared for other purposes than the cultiva¬ 
tion of the soil. It has been held that a community is con¬ 
siderably advanced when it can spare one man in three from 
working upon the land. Only twenty-six per cent, of the 
adult males in Great Britain are agricultural—that is, three 
men labor at some ofher employment, while one cultivates 
the land. During the last forty years the proportion of 
agricultural employment, in comparison with manufacturing 
and commercial, has been constantly decreasing in Great 
Britain, and is now about twenty per cent., whereas in 1811 
it was thirty-five per cent, of all occupations. 



MODERN IMPROVED HARROW. 












































CHAPTER XIV. 


PRODUCTION OF A KNIFE.—MANUFACTURE OF IRON.—RAISING COAL.—THE HOT- 
BLAST.—IRON BRIDGES.—ROLLING BAR-IRON.—MAKING STEEL.—SHEFFIELD MAN¬ 
UFACTURES.—MINING IN GREAT BRITAIN.—NUMBERS ENGAGED IN MINES AND 
METAL MANUFACTURES. 


We have been speaking somewhat fully of agricultural 
instruments and agricultural labor, because they are at 
the root of all other profitable industry. Bread and beef 
make the bone and sinew of the workman. Plows and 
harrows and drills and thrashing-machines are combinations 
of wood and iron. Rude nations have wooden plows. Un¬ 
less the American farmer made a plow out of two pieces of 
stick, and carried it upon his shoulder to the field, as the 
toil-worn and poor people of India do, he must have some 
iron about it. He can not get iron without machinery. 
He can not get even his knife, his tool of all-work, without 
machinery. From the first step to the last in the produc¬ 
tion of a knife, machinery and scientific appliances have 
done the chief work. People that have no science and no 
machinery sharpen a stone, or a bit of shell or bone, and 
cut or saw with it in the best way they can; and after they 
have become very clever, they fasten it to a wooden handle 
with a cord of bark. A member of a civilized community, 
examines two or three dozens of knives, selects which he 
thinks the best, and pays a quarter, or a half a dollar for it, 
the seller thanking him for his custom. The man who has 
nothing but the bone or the shell would gladly toil a month 
for that which does not cost an American laborer half a 
day’s wages. 


204 


MANUFACTURE OF IRON. 


And how does the civilized man obtain his knife upon 
such easy terms ? From the very same cause that he ob¬ 
tains all his other accommodations cheaper, in comparison 
with the ordinary wages of labor, than the inhabitant 
of most other countries—that is, from the operations of 
science, either in the making of the thing itself, or in pro¬ 
curing that without which it could not be made. We must 
always remember that, if we could not get the materials 
without scientific application, it would be impossible for us 
to get what is made of those materials—even if we had the 
power of fashioning those materials by the rudest labor. 

Keeping this in mind, let us see how a knife could be ob¬ 
tained by a man who had nothing to depend upon but his 
hands. 

Ready-made, without the labor of some other man, a knife 
does not exist; but the iron, of which the knife is made, is 
to be had. Very little iron has ever been found in a native 
state, or fit for the blacksmith. The little that has been 
found in that state is gathered up by the mineralogist and 
prized as a rarity; and if human art had not been able to 
procure any in addition to that, gold would have been 
cheap as compared with iron. 


Iron is, no doubt, very abund¬ 
ant in nature; but it is always 
mixed with some other sub¬ 
stance that not only renders it 
unfit for use, but hides its quali¬ 
ties. It is found in the state 
of what is called ironstone , or 
iron-ore. United with oxygen, 
it is often combined with silica, 
or the substance of flints, often 



SULPHURET OF IRON. 


with clay and other earthy substances. Another common 
and valuable ore of iron, is one in which the iron is com- 


MANUFACTURE OF IRON. 


205 


bined with sulphur; it possesses a bright yellow' color, and 
is often, by the inexperienced, mistaken for gold—so little 
has it the appearance of iron. In short, in the state in 
w T hich iron is frequently met with, it is a much more likely 
substance to be chosen for paving a road, or building a wall, 
than for making a knife. 

But suppose that the man knows the particular ore or 
stone that contains the iron, how is he to get it out ? Mere 
force will not do, for the iron, the oxygen, and the silica, or 
other substances, are so nicely mixed, that, though the ore 
were ground to the finest powder, the grinder is no nearer 
the iron than when he had a lump of a ton weight. 

A man who has a block of wood has a wooden bowl in 
the heart of it; and he can get it out too by labor. The 
knife will do it for him in time; and if he take it to the 
turner, the turner with his machinery, his lathe, and his 
gouge, will work it out for him in half an hour. The man 
who has a lump of iron-ore has just as certainly a knife in 
the heart of it; but no mere labor can wgrk it out. Shape 
it as he may, it is not a knife, or steel, or even iron—it is 
iron-ore; and dress it as he will, it would not cut better 
than a brickbat—certainly not so well as the shell or bone 
of the savage. 

There must be knowledge before any thing can be done 
in this case. We must know what is mixed with the iron, 
and how to separate it. We can not do it by mere labor, 
as we can chip away the wood and get out the bowl; and 
therefore we have recourse to fire. 

In the ordinary mode of using it, fire would make matters 
worse. If we put the material into the fire as a stone, we 
should probably receive it back as slag or dross. We must, 
therefore, prepare our fuel. Our fire must be hot, very 
hot; but if our fuel be wood we must burn it into charcoal, 
or if it be coal into coke. 


206 


MANUFACTURE OF IRON. 


The charcoal, or coke, answers for one purpose; but we 
have still the clay or other earth mixed with our iron, and 
how are we to get rid of that ? Pure clay, or pure lime, or 
pure silica, remain stubborn in our hottest fires; but when 
they are mixed in a proper proportion, the one melts the 
other. 

So charcoal or coke, and iron-stone or iron-ore, and 
limestone, are put into a furnace; the charcoal or coke is 
lighted at the bottom, and wind is blown into the furnace, 
at the bottom also. If that wind is not sent in by ma¬ 
chinery, and very powerful machinery too, the effect will 
be little, and the work of the man great; but still it can 
be done. 

In this furnace the lime and clay, or silica, unite, and 
form a sort of glass, which floats upon the surface. At 
the same time the carbon, or pure charcoal, of the fuel, 
with the assistance of the limestone, mixes with the stone, 
or ore, and melts the iron, which, being heavier than the 
other matters, ru^ down to the bottom of the furnace, and 
remains there till the workman lets it out by a hole made 
at the bottom of the furnace for that purpose, and plugged 
with sand. When the workman knows there is enough 
melted, or when the appointed time arrives, he displaces 
the plug of sand with an iron rod, and the melted iron runs 
out like water, and is conveyed into furrows made in sand, 
where it cools, and the pieces formed in the principal fur¬ 
rows are called “ sows,” and those in the furrows branch¬ 
ing from them u pigs.” 

We are now-advanced a considerable way toward the 
production of a knife. We have the materials of a knife. 
We have the iron extracted out of the iron-ore. Before we 
trace the progress of a knife to its final polish, let us see 
what stupendous efforts of machinery have been required 
to produce the cast-iron. 


IRON AND COAL. 


207 


In every part of the operation of making iron—in 
smelting the iron out of the ore; in molding cast-iron 
into those articles for which it is best adapted; in working 
malleable iron, and in applying it to use after it is made; 
nothing can be done without fire, and the fuel that is used 
in almost every stage of the business is coal. The coal 
trade and the iron trade are thus so intimately connected, 
so very much dependent upon each other, that neither of 
them could be carried on to any extent without the other. 
The coal-mines supply fuel, and the iron-works give mining 
tools, pumps, railroads, wheels, and steam-engines, in re¬ 
turn. A little coal might be got without the iron engines, 
and a little iron might be made without coals, by the char¬ 
coal of wood. But the quantity of both would be trifling 
in comparison. The wonderful amount of the production 
of iron in Great Britain, and the cheapness of iron, as com¬ 
pared with the extent of capital required for its manufac¬ 
ture, arises from the fact that the coal-beds and the beds of 
iron-ore lie in juxtaposition. The iron-stones alternate 
with the beds of coal in many English and American coal¬ 
fields ; and thus the same mining undertakings furnish the 
ore out of which iron is made and the fuel by which it is 
smelted. If the coal were in the north, and the fuel in the 
south, the carriage of the one to the other would double 
the cost. 

There was a time when iron was made in Great Britain 
with very little machinery. Iron was manufactured there 
in the time of the Romans; but it was made with great 
manual labor, and was consequently very dear. Hutton, 
in his “ History of Birmingham,” tells us that there is a 
large heap of cinders near that town which have been pro¬ 
duced by an ancient iron-furnace ; and that from the quan¬ 
tity of cinders, as compared with the mechanical powers 
possessed by our forefathers, the furnace must have been 


20& RAISING COAL. 

constantly at work from the time of Julius Csesar. A 
furnace with a steam blast would produce as large a heap 
in a few years. 

At present a cottager in the south of England, where 
there is no coal in the earth, may have a bushel of good 
coals delivered at the door of his cottage for twenty-five 
cents; although that is far more than the price of coal at 
the pit’s mouth. If he had even the means of transporting 
himself and his family to the coal district, he could not, 
without machinery, get a bushel of coals at the price of a 
year’s work. Let us see how a resolute man would proceed 
in such an undertaking. 

The machinery, we will say, is gone. The mines are 
filled up, which the greater part of them would be, with 
water, if the machinery were to stop a single week. Let 
us suppose that the adventurous laborer knows exactly 
the spot where the coal is to be found. This knowledge, 
in a country that has never been searched for coals before, 
is no easy matter, even to those who understand the sub¬ 
ject best: it is the province of geology to give that 
knowledge. But we shall suppose that he gets over that 
difficulty too, for after it there is plenty of difficulty before 
him. 

Well, he comes to the exact spot that he seeks, and 
places himself right over the seam of coal. That seam 
is only a hundred fathoms below the surface, which depth 
he will, of course, reach in good time. To work he goes; 
pares off the green sod with his shovel, loosens the earth 
with his pickax, and, in the course of a week, is twenty 
feet down into the loose earth and gravel, and clears the 
rock at the bottom. He rests during the Sunday, and 
comes refreshed to his work on Monday morning; when, 
behold, there are twelve feet of water in his pit. 

Suppose he no w calls in the aid of a bucket and rope, 


RAISING COAL. 


209 


and that he bales away, till, as night closes, he has lowered 
the water three feet. Next morning it is up a foot and 
a half; but no matter; he has done something, and next 
day he redoubles his efforts, and brings the water down to 
only four feet. That is encouraging; but, from the depth, 
he now works his bucket with more difficulty, and it is 
again a week before his pit is dry. The weather changes; 
the rain comes down heavily; the surface on which it falls 
is spongy; the rock which he has reached is water-tight; 
and in twelve hours his pit is filled to the brim. It is in 
vain to go on. 

The sinking of a pit, even to a less depth than a hundred 
fathoms, sometimes demands, notwithstanding all the im¬ 
provements by machinery, a sum of not less than five 
hundred dollars a fathom, or fifty thousand dollars for the 
whole pit; and therefore, supposing it possible for a single 
man to do it at the rate of twenty-five cents a day, the time 
which he would require would be between four hundred 
and five hundred years. 

Whence comes it that the labor of between four hundred 
and five hundred years is reduced to a single day ? and 
that which, independently of the carriage, would have cost 
fifty thousand dollars, is got for twenty-five cents ? It is 
because man joins with man, and machinery is employed 
to do the drudgery. Nations that have no machinery have 
no coal fires, and are ignorant that there is hidden under 
the earth a substance which contributes more, perhaps, to 
the health and comfort of the inhabitants of Britain than 
any other commodity which they enjoy. 

No nation has worked coal to any thing approaching 
the extent in which it has been worked by the English. 
It has been calculated that France, Belgium, Spain, Prussia, 
Bohemia, and the United States, do not annually produce 


210 


RAISING COAL. 


more than seventeen million tons of coal, which is about 
half of the produce of Great Britain.* 

The greater part of the coal now raised in Britain is 
produced by the employment of the most enormous me¬ 
chanical power. There are in some places shallow and 
narrow pits, where coals may be raised to the surface by a 
windlass; and there are others where horse-power is em¬ 
ployed. But the number of men that can work at a wind¬ 
lass, or the number of horses that can be yoked to a 
machine is limited. The power of the steam-engine is lim¬ 
ited only by the strength of the materials of which it is 
formed. The power of a hundred horses, or of five hundred 
men, may be very easily made by the steam-engine to act 
constantly, and on a single point; and thus there is scarcely 
any thing in the way of mere force which the engine can 
not be made to do. We have seen a coal-pit in England, 
which hardly gave coal enough to maintain a cottager and 
his family, for he worked the pit with imperfect machinery 
—with a half-starved ass applied to a windlass. A mile off 
was a steam-engine of two hundred horse power, raising 
tons'of coals and pumping out rivers of water with a force 
equal to at least a thousand men. This vast force acted 
upon a point, and, therefore, no advantage was gained over 
the machine by the opposing force of water, or the weight 
of the material to be raised. Before the steam-engine was 
invented, the produce of the English coal-mines barely paid 
the expense of working and keeping them dry; and had it 
not been for the steam-engines and other machinery, the 
supply would long before now have dwindled into a very 
small quantity, and the price would have become ten or 
twenty times its present amount. The quantity of coal 

* The estimated amount of coal mined in Great Britain during the 
year 1853, was 31,000,000 tons: the estimated production in the United 
States duiing the year 1854, was 6,000,000 tons. 


THE HOT-BLAST. 


211 


raised in Great Britain was estimated in 1851 at 35,000,000 
tons; and the value at $39,000,000 at the pit’s mouth, 
and $79,000,000 at the place of consumption. The capital 
engaged in the English coal trade was then valued at 
$44,000,000. In 1847, the annual value of all the precious 
metals raised throughout the world was estimated at 
$57,000,000. That value has been greatly increased within 
a few years, since the discovery of the gold-fields of Cali¬ 
fornia and Australia. But the coal of Great Britain, 
as estimated by the cost at the pit’s mouth, is above two 
thirds of this value of the precious metals eight years ago ; 
and the mean annual value, at the furnace, of iron smelted 
by British coal being $35,000,000, the value together of 
English iron and coal exceeds the value of all the gold and 
silver of South America, and California, and Australia, how¬ 
ever large that amount has now become. 

How the value of our cast-iron has been increased by 
modern science may be in some degree estimated by a con¬ 
sideration of what the hot-blast has accomplished. The 
hot-blast blows hot air into the iron-furnace instead of cold 
air. The notion seems simple, but the results are wonder¬ 
ful. Much heat is required in the process of smelting, but 
the cold air blown in, as a blast, lowers the temperature, 
and compels the addition of fuel as a compensation for this 
reduction. The air is now heated before being introduced 
into the furnace, and by this application of science the quan¬ 
tity of coal is wonderfully economized. Formerly seven 
tons of coal were required to produce one ton of iron, but 
three tons now suffice. The amount produced in the same 
time is also nearly sixty per cent, greater. 

The iron is greatly cheaper than a quarter of a century 
ago, for only about one half the coal formerly used is neces¬ 
sary for its production. That, production is almost unlimited 
in amount. In 1788 Great Britain produced only 60,000 


212 


IRON BRIDGES. 


tons or one thirty-sixth part of what is now produced. The 
first iron bridge ever constructed, at Colebrook-dale, En¬ 
gland, and which was erected in 1779, required 378 tons of 
cast-iron for its completion. 



BRITANNIA BRIDGE. 


The wonderful Britannia Bridge, erected in 1850, which 
has been carried over the Menai Strait, hung in mid-air at 
the height of 100 feet above the stream, has required 
10,000 tons of iron for its completion. If chemistry and 
machinery had not been at work to produce more iron 
and cheaper iron, how would our great modern improve¬ 
ments have stopped short—our rail-roads, our water-pipes, 
our gas-pipes, our steamships! How should we have 
lacked the great material of every useful implement, from 
the gigantic anchor that holds the man-of-war firm in her 
moorings, and the mighty gun that, in the last resort, as¬ 
serts a spirit without which all material improvement can 
not avert a nation’s decay—to the steel-pen with which 


BAR-IRON. 


2*13 


thoughts are exchanged between friends at the opposite 
ends of the earth, and the needle by which the poor seam¬ 
stress in her garret maintains her place among competing 
numbers. 

Nearly all the people now engaged in iron-works in Great 
Britain are supported by the improvements that have been 
made in the manufacture, by machinery , since l^S. Yes, 
wholly by the machinery; for before then the quantity 
made by the charcoal of wood had fallen off one fourth in 
forty-five years. The wood for charcoal was becoming ex¬ 
hausted, and nothing but the powerful blast of a machine 
will make iron with coke. Without the aid of machinery 
the trade would have become extinct. The iron and the 
coal employed in making it would have remained useless in 
the mines. 

And now, having seen what is required to produce a 
“ pig” of cast-iron, let us return to the knife, whose course 
of manufacture we traced a little way. 

The lump of cast-iron, as it leaves the furnace, has many 
processes to go through before it becomes fit for making a 
knife. It can not be worked by the hammer, or sharpened 
to a cutting edge ; and so it must be made into malleable 
iron—into a kind of iron which, instead of melting in the 
fire, will soften, and admit of being hammered into shape, 
or united by the process of welding. 

The methods by which this is accomplished vary, but 
they in general consist in keeping the iron melted in a fur¬ 
nace, and stirring it with an iron rake, till the blast of air 
in the furnace burns the greater part of the carbon out of 
it. By this means it becomes tough, and, without cooling, 
is taken from the furnace and repeatedly beaten by large 
hammers, or squeezed through large rollers, until it becomes 
the bar-iron of which so much use is made in every art of 
life. This process of converting cast-iron into malleable or 


2l4 


ROLLING BAR-IRON. 


bar-iron, which is termed “puddling” will undoubtedly be 
superseded, at no distant day, by an American invention, 
already introduced, in which the malleable iron is, by one 
operation, manufactured directly from the ore, thus effect¬ 
ing an immense saving in fuel, time, machinery, and labor. 

About the close of the last century the great improve¬ 
ment in the manufacture of bar-iron was introduced by 
passing it through grooved rollers, instead of hammering it 
on the anvil; but in our own time the invention has become 
most important. The inventor, Mr. Coet, spent a fortune 
on the enterprise, and died poor. His son, in 1812, peti¬ 
tioned the English Parliament to assign to him some reward 
for the great gift that his father had bestowed upon the na¬ 
tion. He asked in vain. It is the common fate of the in¬ 
genious and the learned ; and it is well that life has some 
other consolations for the man that has exercised his intel¬ 
lect more profitably for the' world than for himself, than the 
pride of the mere capitalist, who thinks accumulation, and 
accumulation only, the chief business of existence. Rolling 
bar-iron is one of the great labor-saving principles that es¬ 
pecially prevail in every branch of manufacture in metals. 
The unaided strength of all the men in the world could not 
make all the iron which is at present made, though they did 
nothing else. Machinery is therefore resorted to; and 
water-wheels, steam-engines, and all sorts of powers are set 
to work in moving hammers, turning rollers, and drawing 
rods and wire through holes, till every workman can have 
the particular form which he wants. If it were not for the 
machinery that is employed in the manufacture, no man 
could obtain a spade for less than the price of a year’s la¬ 
bor ; the buckles of the harness of a horse would cost more 
than the horse himself; and the farmer would have to re¬ 
turn to wooden plow-shares, and hoes made of sticks with 
crooked ends. 


MAKING STEEL. 2lh 

After all this, the iron is not yet fit for a knife, at least 
for such a knife as we may buy for a quarter. Many na¬ 
tions would, however, be thankful for a little bit of it, and 
nations too in whose countries there is no want of iron ore. 
But they have no knowledge of the method of making iron, 
and have no furnaces or machinery. When our ships sail 
among the people of the eastern islands, those people do not 
ask for gold. “ Iron, iron !” is the call; and he who can 
exchange his best commodity for a rusty nail or a bit of 
iron hoop is a fortunate individual. 

We are not satisfied with that in the best form, which is 
a treasure to those people in the worst. We must have a 
knife, not of iron, but of steel —a substance that will bear a 
keen edge without either breaking or bending. In order 
to get that, we must again change the nature of our ma¬ 
terial. 

How is that to be done ? The oftener that iron is heated 
and hammered, it becomes the softer and more ductile; 
and as the heating and hammering forced the carbon out 
of it, if we give it the carbon back again, we shall harden 
it; but it happens that we also give it other properties, by 
restoring its carbon, when the iron has once been in a duc¬ 
tile state. 

For this purpose, bars or pieces of iron are buried in 
powdered charcoal, covered up in a vessel, and kept at a 
red heat for a greater or less number of hours, according to 
the object desired. There are niceties in the process, which 
it is not necessary to explain, that produce the peculiar 
quality of- steel, as distinguished from cast-iron. If the 
operation of heating the iron in charcoal is continued too 
long, or the heat is too great, the iron becomes cast steel, 
and can not be welded; but if it is not melted in the opera¬ 
tion, it can be worked with the hammer in the same man¬ 


ner as iron. 


216 


MAKING STEEL. 


In each case, however, it has acquired the property upon 
which the keenness of the knife depends; and the chief dif¬ 
ference between the cast steel and the steel that can bear to 
be hammered is, that cast steel takes a keener edge, but is 
more easily broken. 

The property which it has acquired is that of bearing to 
be tempered. If it be made very hot, and plunged into 
cold water, and kept there till it is quite cooled, it is so 
hard that it will cut iron, but it is brittle. In this state 
the workman brightens the surface, and lays the steel upon 
a piece of hot iron, and holds it to the fire till it becomes 
of a color which he knows from experience is a test of the 
proper state of the process. Then he plunges it again into 
water, and it has the degree of hardness that he wants. 

The grinding a knife, and the polishing it, even when it 
has acquired the requisite properties of steel, if they were 
not done by machinery, would cost more than the whole 
price of a knife upon which machinery is used. A travel¬ 
ing knife-grinder, with his treadle and wheels, has a ma¬ 
chine, but not a very perfect one. The knife-maker grinds 
the knife at first upon wheels of immense size, turned by 
water or steam, and moving so quickly that they appear to 
stand still—the eye can not follow the motion. With these 
aids the original grinding and polishing cost scarcely any 
thing; while the traveling knife-grinder charges two cents 
or more for the labor of himself and his wheel in just sharp¬ 
ening it. 

The “ Sheffield whittle” is as old as the time of Edward 
III., as we know from the poet Chaucer. Sheffield is still 
the metropolis of steel. It is in the change of iron into 
steel by a due admixture of carbon—by hammering, by 
casting, by melting—that the natural powers of Sheffield, 
her water and her coal, have become of such value. Wher¬ 
ever there is a stream with a fall, there is the grinding* 


SHEFFIELD MANUFACTURES. 


217 


wheel at work: and in hundreds of workshops the nicer 
labor of the artificer is fashioning the steel into every in¬ 
strument which the art of man can devise, from the scythe 
of the mower to the lancet of the surgeon. The machinery 
that made the steel has called into action the skill that 
makes the file-cutter. No machine has yet been invented, 
which can make a perfect file. The file-cutter with a small 
hammer can cut notch after notch in a piece of softened 
steel, without a guide or gauge—even to the number of a 
hundred notches in an inch. It is one out of many things 
in which skilled labor triumphs over the uniformity of ope¬ 
ration which belongs to a machine. The cutting of files 
alone in Great Britain gives employment to more than six 
thousand persons. This is one of the many instances in 
which it is evident that the application of machinery to the 
arts calls into action an almost infinite variety of handicrafts. 
An ordinary workman can obtain a knife for the price of a 
few hours’ labor. The causes are easily seen. Every part 
of the labor that can be done by machinery is so done. One 
turn of a wheel, one stroke of a steam-engine, one pinch of 
a pair of rollers, or one blow of a die, will do more in a 
second than a man could do in a month. One man, also, 
has but one thing to do in connection with the machinery; 
and when the work of the hand succeeds to the work of the 
wheel or the roller, the one man, like the file-cutter, has 
still but one thing to do. In course of time he comes to do 
twenty times as much as if he were constantly shifting from 
one thing to another. The value of the work that a man 
does is not to be measured in all cases by the time and 
trouble that it cost him individually, but by the market 
value of what he produces: which value is determined, as 
far as labor is concerned, by the price paid for doing it in 
the best and most expeditious mode. 

And does not all this machinery, and this economy of 
10 


218 


SHEFFIELD MANUFACTURES. 


labor, it may still be said, deprive many workmen of em¬ 
ployment ? No. By these means the iron trade gives 
bread to hundreds, where otherwise it would not have 
given bread to one. There are more hands employed at 
the iron-works than there would have been if there had been 
no machinery; because without machinery men could not 
produce iron cheap enough to be generally used. 

The machinery that is now employed in the iron trade, 
not only enables the people to be supplied cheaply with all 
sorts of articles of iron, but it enables a great number of 
people to find employment, not in the iron trade only, but 
in all other trades, who otherwise could not have been em¬ 
ployed ; and it enables every body to do more work with 
the same exertion by giving them better tools; while it 
makes all more comfortable by furnishing them with more 
commodious domestic utensils. 

There are thousands of families on the face of the earth, 
that would be glad to exchange all they have for a tin ket¬ 
tle, or an iron pot, which can be bought any where in the 
United States for a shilling or tvvo. And could the poor 
man in this country but once see how even the rich man in 
some other places must toil day after day before he can 
scrape or grind a stone so as to be able to boil a little water 
in it, or make it serve for a lamp, he would account himself 
a poor man no more. A traveling beggar carries about 
with him more of the conveniences of life than are enjoyed 
by the chiefs or rulers in countries which naturally have 
much finer climates than that of England. But they have 
no machinery, and therefore they are wretched. 

Great Britain is a country rich in other minerals than 
iron-stone and coal. Her earliest inhabitants are recorded 
to have exchanged tin with maritime people who came to 
her shores. They had lead also, which was cast into oblong 
blocks during the Roman occupation of the island, and 


BRITISH MINERALS. 


219 


which bear the imperial stamp. At the beginning of the 
eighteenth century tin was worked into pewter, which, in 
the shape of plates, had superseded wooden trenchers. But 
the English raised and smelted no copper, importing it un- 
wrought. The valuable tin and copper mines of Cornwall 
were imperfectly worked in the middle of the last century, 
because the water which overflowed them was only removed 
by hydraulic engines, the best of which was introduced in 
1700. When Watt had reconstructed the steam-engine, 
steam-power began to be employed in draining the Corn¬ 
wall mines. In 1780, 24,443 tons of copper-ore were raised, 
producing 2932 tons of copper. In 1850, 155,025 tons of 
ore were obtained, producing 12,254 tons of copper. The 
tin-mines produced 1600 tons in 1750, and 10,719 tons in 
1849. 

In all mining operations, conducted as they are in modern 
times, and in our own country, we must either go without 
the article produced, whether coal, or iron, or lead, or cop¬ 
per, if the machines were abolished—or we must employ 
human labor, in works the most painful, at a price which 
would not only render existence unbearable, but destroy it 
altogether. The people, in that case, would be in the con¬ 
dition of the unhappy natives of South America, when the 
Spaniards resolved to get gold at any cost of human suffer¬ 
ing. The Spaniards had no machines but pickaxes and 
spades to put in the hands of the poor Indians. They com¬ 
pelled them to labor incessantly with these, until in some 
instances whole tribes became extinct. Without machinery, 
in places where people can obtain even valuable ore for 
nothing, the collection and preparation of metals is hardly 
worth the labor. Mungo Parke describes the sad condition 
of the Africans who are always washing gold-dust; and we 
have seen in England a poor man separating small parti- 


220 


TIN.-COPPEE.-LEAD. 


cles of lead from the limestone, or spar, and unable to earn 
a shilling a day by the process. A man of capital erects 
lead-works, and in a year or two obtains an adequate profit, 
and employs many laborers. 

It may enable us, in addition to our slight notices of 
quantities produced, to form something like an accurate 
conception of the vast mineral industry of Great Britain, if 
we give the aggregate of men employed as miners and 
metal-workers, according to the census of 1851. Of coal¬ 
miners there were 216,366; of iron-miners, 27,098 ; of cop¬ 
per-miners, 18,468 ; of tin-miners, 12,912; of lead-miners, 
21,617. This is a total of 296,461. In the manufacture of 
various articles of iron and steel, in addition to the iron and 
coal-miners, who can not be accurately distinguished, there 
are employed 281,578 male workers, and 18,807 female; 
and in the manufacture of articles of brass and other mixed 
metals, 46,076; of which number 8,370 are females. The 
workers in metal thus enumerated amount to 542,922. We 
may add, from the class of persons engaged in mechanic 
productions, in which we find 48,050 engine and machine 
makers, and 7,429 gunsmiths, a number that will raise the 
aggregate of miners and workers in metals to 600,000 per¬ 
sons. The boldness of some of the operations which are 
conducted in this department of industry, the various skill 
of the laborers, and the vastness of the aggregate results, 
impress the mind with a sense of power that almost belongs 
to the sublime. The fables of mythology are tame when 
compared with these realities of science. Yulcan with his 
anvils in iEtna, is a feeble instrument by the side of the 
steam-hammer that forges an anchor, or the hydraulic press 
that lifts a bridge. A knot of Cupids co-operating for the 
fabrication of their barbed arrows is the poetry of painting 
applied to the arts. But there is higher poetry in that 


MINERS AND METAL-WORKERS 


221 


triumph of knowledge, and skill, and union of forces, which 
fills a furnace with fifty thousand pounds of molten iron, 
and conducts the red-hot stream to the enormous mold 
which is to produce a cylinder without a flaw. 



FROM A LB ANT. 





CHAPTER XV. 


CONVEYANCE AND EXTENDED USE OF COAL.—CONSUMPTION AT VARIOUS PERIODS.— 
CONDITION OF THE ROADS IN THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES.— 
ADVANTAGES OF GOOD ROADS.—WANT OF ROADS IN AUSTRALIA.—CANALS.—RAIL¬ 
WAY OF 1680. —RAIL-WAY STATISTICS.—POST-OFFICE STATISTICS.—INTRODUCTION 
OF STAGE-COACHES. 


We have seen how by machinery more than thirty-five 
million tons of coal—now become one of the very first 
necessaries of life—are obtained, which without machinery 
could not be obtained at all in the thousandth part of the 
quantity; and which, consequently would be a thousand 
times the price—would, in fact, be precious stones, instead 
of common fuel. 

Engines or machines, of some kind or other, not only 
keep the pits dry and raise the coals to the surface, but 
convey them to the ship upon rail-roads; the ship, itself a 
machine, carries them round all parts of the coast; barges 
and boats convey them along the rivers and canals; and, 
within these few years, rail-ways have carried the coals of 
Pennsylvania and the other coal-fields of the Middle and 
Western States, into remote places of New England and 
New York, where it was formerly scarcely known as an 
article of domestic use and consumption. Even in Nan¬ 
tucket and New Bedford, those great oil markets of the 
world, gas manufactured from coal is superseding oil for 
purposes of illumination. 

Through the general consumption of wood instead of 
coal, a fire for domestic use in France is a great deal dearer 


CONSUMPTION OF COAL. 


223 


than a fire in England or the United States; because, 
although the coal-pits of Great Britain or America are not 
to be found at every man’s door, nor within many miles of 
the doors of some men, machinery at the pits, and ships 
and barges, and rail-ways, which are also machinery, enable 
the bulk of the population of Great Britain and the United 
States to enjoy the blessings of a coal fire at a much cheaper 
rate than a Frenchman can his fire of wood, which is not 
limited in its growth to any particular district. Without 
the machinery to bring coals to his door, not one man out 
of fifty of the present population of England could have had 
the power of warming himself in winter; any more than 
without the machines and implements of farming he could 
obtain food, or without those of the arts he could procure 
clothing. The sufferings produced by a want of fuel can 
not be estimated by those who have abundance. In Nor¬ 
mandy, in France, very recently, such was the scarcity of 
wood, that persons engaged in various works of hand, as 
lace-making by the pillow, absolutely sat up through the 
winter nights in the barns of the farmers, where cattle were 
littered down, that they might be kept warm by the animal 
heat around them. They slept in the day, and were warmed 
by being in the same outhouse with cows and horses at 
night;—and thus they worked under every disadvantage, 
because fuel was scarce and very dear. 

Coals were consumed in London in the time of Queen 
Elizabeth; but their use was, no doubt, very limited. 
Shakspeare, who always refers to the customs of his own 
time, makes Dame Quickly speak of “ siting in my Dolphin- 
chamber at the round-table, by a sea-coal fire, on Wednes¬ 
day in Whitsun week.” But Mrs. Quickly was a luxurious 
person, who had plate, and tapestry, and gilt goblets. Har¬ 
rison, in his “Description of Britain,” at the same pei’iod, 
says, that coal is “ used in the cities and towns that lie 


224 


CONSUMPTION OF COAL. 


about the coastbut he adds, “ I 
marvel not a little that there is no 
trade of these into the interior; for 
want thereof the smiths do work their 
iron with charcoal.” He adds, with 
great truth, “I think that far carriage 
be the only cause.” 

The consumption of coal in London 
in the last year of Charles II. (1685) 
amounted to 350,000 tons. This was 
a goblet.* really a large consumption, however 
insignificant it may sound when com¬ 
pared with the modern demand of the metropolis. In 
1801 there were imported into London about a million 
tons of coal. In 1850, 3,600,000 tons were brought to 
the London market. The average contract price in the 
ten years ending 1810, was 455. 6 d.; in the ten years 
ending 1850, it was 18s. 6d. But in 1824 an oppressive 
duty of Vs. 6 d. per ton on sea-borne coals was reduced 
to 4s.; and in 1831 the duty was wholly repealed. The 
citizens of the United States may well be grateful for 
the blessings of liberty and free government which they 
enjoy, when they call to mind that in “free and enlightened 
England ” even to the present day, many of the chief mate¬ 
rials of manufacture, and many of the great necessaries and 
conveniences of life, such as wood and timber, bricks, paper, 
glass, tea, coffee, sugar, etc., are made universally dear by 
excessive taxation. 

The chief power which produces coal and iron cheap is 
that of machinery. It is the same power which distributes 
these bulky articles through the country, and equalizes the 
cost in a considerable degree to the man who lives in Hew 

* A Goblet from the Boar’s Head Tavern, supposed to be that alluded 
to by Dame Quickly. 




IMPORTANCE OF ROADS. 


225 


England and the man who lives in Georgia or Iowa. The 
difference in cost is the price of transport; and machinery, 
applied in various improved ways, is every year lessening 
the cost of conveyance, and thus equalizing prices through¬ 
out the United States. The same applications of mechani¬ 
cal power enable a man to move from one place to another 
with equal ease, cheapness, and rapidity. Quick traveling 
has become cheaper than slow’ traveling. The time saved 
remains for profitable labor. 

About a hundred and ninety years ago, when the first 
turnpike-road was formed in England, a mob broke the 
toll-gates, because they thought an unjust tax was being 
put upon them. They did not perceive that this small 
tax for the use of a road would confer upon them innu¬ 
merable comforts, and double and treble the means of em¬ 
ployment. 

If there were no road, and no bridge, a man would take 
six months in finding his way from Boston to Philadelphia, 
if, indeed, he found it at all. He would have to keep the 
line of the hills, and deviate far from a straight line, in order 
that he might come upon the rivers at particular spots, 
where he would be able to jump over them with ease, or 
wade through them without danger. 

When a man has gone up the bank of a river for twelve 
miles in one direction, in order to be able to cross it, he 
may find that, before he proceeds one mile in the line of his 
journey, he has to go along the bank of another river for 
twelve miles in the opposite direction ; and the courses of 
the river may be so crooked that he is really further from 
his journey’s end than he was in the morning. 

He may come to the side of a lake, and not know the end 
at which the river, too broad and deep for him to cross, 
runs out, and he may go twenty miles the wrong way, and 
thus lose forty. 


10* 


226 


ROADS IN THE SEVENTEENTH 


Difficulties such as these are felt by every traveler in an 
uncivilized country. In reading books of travels, in Africa 
for instance, we sometimes wonder how it is that the ad¬ 
venturer proceeds a very few miles each day. We forget 
that he has no roads. 

Two hundred years ago—even one hundred years ago— 
in some places fifty years ago—the roads of England were 
wholly unfit for general traffic and the conveyance of heavy 
goods. Pack-horses mostly carried on the communication 
in the manufacturing districts. The roads were as unfit for 
moving commodities of bulk, such as coal, wool, and corn, 
as the sandy roads of Poland were thirty years ago, and as 
many still are. An English gentleman who went upon the 
continent a few years ago to see what stores of wheat ex¬ 
isted, found that in many parts the original price of wheat 
was doubled by the price of land conveyance for a very few 
miles. 

In 1663 the first turnpike act, which was so offensive to 
some of the English people, was carried through parliament. 
It was for the repair of the “ ancient highway and post-road 
leading from London to York,” which was declared to be 
“ very ruinous, and become almost impassable.” This was, 
on many accounts, one of the most important lines of the 
country. Let us see in what state it was seventeen years 
after the passing of the act. In the “ Diary of Ralph 
Thoresby,” under the date of October, 1680, we have this 
entry: “To Ware, twenty miles from London, a most 
pleasant road in summer, and as bad in winter, because of 
the depth of the cart-ruts.” Take another road a little 
later. In December, 1703, Charles III., King of Spain, in 
a visit to England, slept at Petworth on his way from Ports¬ 
mouth to Windsor, and Prince George of Denmark went 
to meet him there by desire of the Queen. The distance 
from Windsor to Petworth is about forty miles. In the 


AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 


227 


relation of the journey given by one of the prince’s attend¬ 
ants, he states: “We set out at six in the morning, by 
torchlight, to go to Petworth, and did not get out of the 
coaches (save only when we were overturned or stuck fast 
in the mire) till we arrived at our journey’s end. ’Twas a 
hard service for the prince to sit fourteen hours in the coach 
that day without eating any thing, and passing through the 
worst ways I ever saw in my life. We were thrown but 
once indeed in going, but our coach, which was the leading 
one, and his Highness’s body-coach, would have suffered 
very much, if the nimble boors of Sussex had not frequently 
poised it, or supported it with their shoulders, and the 
nearer we approached the duke’s house the more inaccessi¬ 
ble it seemed to be. The last nine miles of the way cost us 
six hours’ time to conquer them.” From the county-town of 
Sussex, about the beginning of the reign of George III., the 
roads were never in such a condition as to allow sheep or 
cattle to be driven on them to the London market; and 
consequently, there not being sufficient demand at home to 
give a remunerating price, the beef and mutton were sold 
at a rate far below the average to the small population in 
the country, which was thus isolated from the common 
channels of demand and supply. 

In the Highlands of Scotland, at the beginning of the 
present century, the communication from one district to 
another was attended with such difficulty and danger, that 
some of the counties were excused from sending jurors to 
the circuit to assist in the administration of justice. The 
poor people inhabiting these districts were almost entirely 
cut off from intercourse with the rest of mankind. The 
Highlands were of less advantage to the British empire 
than the most distant colony. Parliament resolved to rem¬ 
edy the evil; and, accordingly, from 1802 to 1817, the sum 
of two hundred thousand pounds was laid out in making 


228 


ADVANTAGES OF GOOD ROADS. 


roads and bridges in these mountainous districts. Mark the 
important consequences to the people of the Highlands, as 
described by Mr. Telford, the engineer of the roads: 

“ Since these roads were made accessible, wheelwrights 
and Cartwrights have been established, the plow has been 
introduced, and improved tools and utensils are used. The 
plow was not previously used in general; in the interior 
and mountainous parts they frequently used crooked sticks 
with iron on them, drawn or pushed along. The moral 
habits of the great mass of the working classes are changed; 
they see that they may depend on their own exertions for 
support. This goes on silently, and is scarcely perceived 
until apparent by the results. I consider these improve¬ 
ments one of the greatest blessings ever conferred upon 
any country. About two hundred thousand pounds has 
been granted in fifteen years. It has been the means of 
advancing the country at least one hundred years.” 

There are many parts of Ireland which sustained the 
same miseries and inconveniences from the want of roads 
as the Highlands of Scotland did at the beginning of the 
present century. In 1823, Mr. Nimmo, an engineer, stated 
to parliament that the fertile plains of Limerick, Cork, and 
Kerry, in Ireland, were separated from each other by a de¬ 
serted country, presenting an impassable barrier between 
them. This region was the retreat of smugglers, robbers, 
and culprits of every description ; for the tract was a void, 
neglected, and deserted country, without roads, culture, or 
civilization. The government ordered roads to be made 
through this barren district. We will take one example of 
the immediate effect of this road-making, as described by a 
witness before parliament: “ A hatter had a small field 
through which the new road passed; this part next the 
town was not opened till 1826. In making arrangements 
with him for his damages, he said that he ought to make 


ADVANTAGES OF GOOD ROADS. 


229 


me (the engineer) a present of all the land he had, for that 
the second year I was at the roads he sold more hats to the 
people of the mountains alone than he did for seven years 
before to the high and low lands together. Although he 
never worked a day on the roads, he got comfort and pros¬ 
perity by them.” 

The hatter got comfort and prosperity by the roads, 
because the man who had to sell and the man who had to 
buy were brought closer to each other by means of the 
roads. When there were no roads, the hatter kept his 
goods upon the shelf, and the laborer in the mountains 
went without a hat. When the laborer and the hatter 
were brought together by the roads, the hatter soon sold 
off his stock, and the manufacturer of hats went to work 
to produce him a new stock ; while the laborer, who found 
the advantage of having a hat, also went to work to earn 
more money, that he might pay for another when he should 
require it. It became a fashion to wear hats, and of course 
a fashion to work hard, and to save time, to be able to 
pay for them. Thus the road created industry on both 
sides—on the side of the producer of hats and that of the 
consumer. 

Instances such as these of the want of communication 
between one district and another are now very rare indeed 
either in England or the United States. But if we look 
to countries intimately connected with our own, we shall 
find no lack of examples of a state of commercial inter¬ 
course attending a want of roads. The gold-fields of Aus¬ 
tralia have largely stimulated the export of manufactured 
goods from England and the United States. One of the 
colonists at Sydney writes thus to the chief organ of intel¬ 
ligence in England :—“ The roads throughout the colony, 
bad as they were, are now worse than ever. The inland 
mails can not run by night, and stick fast and upset in all 


230 


WANT OF ROADS IN AUSTRALIA. 


directions by day. Communication with the interior towns 
is possible only at an enormous cost. The price of conveying 
a ton of goods from Sydney to Bathurst, about 130 miles, is 
eight times the freight of the same quantity from London 
to Sydney. In cost of conveyance London and Liverpool 
are, in fact, only sixteen miles from Sydney by land, though 
th^ distance by sea is sixteen thousand. We here see daily 
the most striking illustration of the truth that 

“ Seas but join the regions they divide.” 

Cargoes are poured into the sea-ports with the greatest 
facility, and then the distribution is suddenly checked. 
Hence the enormous rents of stores, cessation of demand, 
and the necessity of forced sales, with the natural conse¬ 
quence—heavy losses to the exporters, who perhaps wonder 
how trade with Australia can be so unprofitable, scarcely 
suspecting one of the main causes of its uncertainty. 
Foreign merchants might do worse than help to open up 
the internal communications of this continent.” 

The city of Sydney has a wharfage two miles in extent. 
The communication from the port to the interior is thus 
described:—“ Imagine a great rail-road, instead of ter¬ 
minating in a splendid station, with every means of con¬ 
veying and removing goods to roads in every direction, 
ending suddenly in swamp, forest, and sand, through which, 
by dint of lashing, and swearing, and unloading, and re¬ 
loading, a team of bullocks and a dray drag their goods 
ten miles per diem , at $200 or $350 per ton for the jour¬ 
ney. The channel of trade is all that civilization, science, 
and capital can make it, from the threshold of the English 
or American factory to the edge of the Sydney wharf. 
There it breaks suddenly, and beyond all is primitive, rude, 
and barbarous in the means of conveyance. The bale of 
goods last unloaded from the rail-way train is transferred 


WANT OF ROADS IN AUSTRALIA. 


231 


to the bullock dray, to begin its ‘ crawl’ up the country, 
costing all its freight across the ocean for every twenty 
miles. It can not be otherwise. There are no passable 
roads.” 

It is impossible to have a more vivid picture than this 
of the sudden impediment "which the commercial enterprise 
of one country receives from the want of the commonest 
means of communication in another. The bullock-cart of 
Syria, and the Australian bullock-cart, would be useful in¬ 
struments if they had roads to work in. But there must be 
general civilization before there are extensive roads. Carts 
and bullocks are of readier creation than roads. It has 
taken eighteen centuries to make the English roads, and 
the Romans, the kings of the world, were the great road- 
makers, whose works still remain: 

“ Laboring pioneers, 

A. multitude with spades and axes armed, 

To lay hills plain, fell woods, or valleys fill, 

Or where plain was, raise hill, or overlay 

With bridges rivers proud, as with a yoke.”— Paradise Regained. 

What the Romans were to England, the emigrants must 
be to Australia and California. But the discovery of great 
natural wealth, the vigor of the race, the intercourse with 
commercial nations of the old and new worlds, the free 
institutions which have been transplanted there without 
any arbitrary meddling or chilling patronage, will effect in 
a quarter of a century what the parent people, struggling 
with ignorant rulers and feeble resources, have been so 
long in accomplishing. 

The Canals of England date only for a hundred years 
back. The first Act of Parliament for the construction of 
a canal was passed in 1755. The Duke of Bridgewater 
obtained his first Act of Parliament in 1759, for the con- 


232 


CANALS. 


struction of those noble works which will connect his mem¬ 
ory with those who have been the greatest benefactors of 
their country. The great manufacturing prosperity of En¬ 
gland dates from this period; and it will be forever asso¬ 
ciated with the names of Watt, the improver and almost 
the inventor of the steam-engine—of Arkwright, the pre¬ 
siding genius of cotton-spinning—and of Brindley, the 
great engineer of canals. In the conception of the vast 
works which Brindley undertook for the Duke of Bridge- 
water, there was an originality and boldness which may 
have been carried further in recent engineering, but which 
a century ago were the creators of works which were looked 
upon as marvels. To cut tunnels through hills—to carry 
mounds across valleys—to build aqueducts over navigable 
rivers—were regarded then as wild and impracticable con¬ 
ceptions. Another engineer, at Brindley’s desire, was 
called in to give an opinion as to a proposed aqueduct 
over the river Irwell. He looked at the spot where the 
aqueduct was to be built, and exclaimed, “ I have often 
heard of castles in the air, but never before was shown the 
place where any of them were to be erected.” Brindley’s 
castle in the air still stands firm; and his example, and that 
of his truly illustrious employer, have covered both En¬ 
gland and the United States with many such fabrics, which 
owe their origin not to the government, but to the people. 

The navigable canals of England are more than two thou¬ 
sand miles in length. For the slow transport of heavy 
goods they hold their place against the competition of rail¬ 
roads, and continue to be important instruments of internal 
commerce. When rail-ways were first projected, it is said 
that an engineer, being asked what would become of the 
canals if the new mode of transit were adopted, answered 
that they would be drained and become the beds of rail¬ 
ways. Like many other predictions connected with the last 


CANALS. 


233 


great medium of internal communication, the engineer was 
wholly mistaken in his prophecy. 

The great principle of exchange between different sec¬ 
tions and districts, has covered the country with good 
roads, with canals, and finally with rail-ways. The rail-way 
and the steam-carriage have carried the principle of dimin¬ 
ishing the price of conveyance, and therefore of commodi¬ 
ties, by machinery, to an extent which makes all other illus¬ 
trations almost unnecessary. A road with a wagon moving 
on it is a mechanical combination; a canal, with its locks, 
and towing-paths, and boats gliding along almost without 
effort, is a higher mechanical combination ; a railway, with 
its locomotive engine, and carriage after carriage dragged 
along at the rate of thirty or forty miles an hour, is the 
highest of such mechanical combinations. The force ap¬ 
plied upon a level turnpike-road, which is required to move 
1,800 pounds, if applied to drag a canal-boat will move 
55,500 pounds, both at the rate of two and a half miles per 
hour. But we want economy in time as well as economy in 
the application of motive power. It has been attempted to 
apply speed to canal traveling. Up to four miles an hour 
the canal can convey an equal weight more economically 
than a rail-road; but after a certain velocity is exceeded, 
that is thirteen and a half miles an hour, the horse on the 
turnpike-road can drag as much as the canal-team. Then 
comes in the great advantage of the rail-road. The same 
force that is required to draw 1,900 pounds upon a canal, 
at a rate above thirteen and a half miles an hour, will draw 
14,400 pounds upon a railway, at the rate of thirteen and a 
half miles an hour. The producers and consumers are thus 
brought together, not only at the least cost of transit, but 
at the least expenditure of time. The road, the canal, and 
the rail-way have each their distinctive advantages; and it 
is worthy of note how they work together. From every 


234 


rjLil-way of 1680. 


rail-way station there must be a road to the adjacent towns 
and villages, and a better road than was once thought neces¬ 
sary. Horses are required as much as ever, although mails 
and coaches are no longer the glories of the road; and the 
mail finds its way into every hamlet by the united agency 
of the road and the rail-way. 

Roger North described an English Newcastle rail-way in 
1680: “Another thing that is remarkable is their way- 
leaves ; for when men have pieces of ground between the 
colliery and the river, they sell leave to lead coals over their 
ground; and so dear that the owner of a rood of ground 
will expect twenty pounds per annum for his leave. The 
manner of the carriage is by laying rails of timber, from the 
colliery down to the river, exactly straight and parallel; 
and bulky carts are made with four rowlets fitting these 
rails; whereby the carriage is so easy that the horse will 
draw down four or five chaldrons of coals, and is an immense 
benefit to the coal-merchant.” Who would have thought 
that this contrivance would have led to no large result till a 
hundred and fifty years had passed away? Who could 
have believed that “the rails of timber, exactly straight 
and parallel,” and the “ bulky carts with four rowlets ex¬ 
actly fitting the rails,” would have changed the face, and to 
a great degree the destinies of the world ? 

In the olden and more thickly peopled portions of the 
United States, an equal and in some respects a greater ad¬ 
vance has been made in improving the means of transporta¬ 
tion and intercommunication, than exists in Great Britain. 
Massachusetts especially is completely covered with a net¬ 
work of rail-way, and in one county, of no inconsiderable 
extent, a rail-road it is said intersects every town. The 
total length of rail-roads completed and in use in the United 
States on the 1st of January, 1855, was estimated at 
23,242 miles; and that in various stages of progress, and in 


POST-OFFICE STATISTICS. 


235 


the hands of engineers, at 18,000 miles more, making in all a 
total of some 40,000 miles already constructed, or to be con¬ 
structed within a few years. The capital invested in rail-ways 
in the United States, is estimated at nearly $700,000,000. 
According to official returns, the total length- of rail-roads 
open and in use in Great Britain'in 1852, was 6,890 miles. 

The length of the various telegraph lines in the United 
States in active operation is upward of 41,000 miles, cost¬ 
ing nearly $7,000,000. 

It is now about a century since Benjamin Franklin, Post¬ 
master-General of the American Colonies, by appointment 
of the Crown, set out in his old gig to make an official in¬ 
spection of the principal routes. It is about eighty years 
since he held the same office under the authority of Con¬ 
gress, when a small folio (now preserved in the department 
at Washington), containing but three quires of paper, lasted 
as his account-book for two years. These simple facts bring 
up before us, more forcibly than an elaborate description, 
the vast increase in post-office facilities within a hundred 
years. For if a Postmaster-General was to undertake to 
pass over all the routes at present existing, it would require 
six years of incessant rail-road travel, at the rate of a hun¬ 
dred and twenty-five miles daily; while if he was to under¬ 
take the job in an “ old gig” he would require a life-time 
for its performance. Instead of a small folio, with its three 
quires of paper, the post-office accounts consume every two 
years, three thousand of the largest sized ledgers, keeping 
no less than one hundred clerks constantly employed in 
recording transactions with thirty thousand contractors and 
other persons. 

Even as late as the year 1790, the post-office facilities 
were a mere trifle, at least as compared with the present 
time. There were, at that period, but 1,875 miles of post¬ 
routes, or about the same number as there are now in Ore- 


236 


POST-OFFICE STATISTICS. 


gon; and only seventy-five post-offices. The mail was often 
a week between New England and Philadelphia; a fort¬ 
night between Boston and Savannah; and in the winter 
almost as long in going between Philadelphia and Pittsburg. 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 


In 1800 the the post-office business of the whole United 
States did not exceed that of the State of New York at the 































POST-OFFICE STATISTICS. 


237 


present time. As late as 1810 there but 2,300 post-offices, 
or only a tithe of the number there is at present; while the 
receipts were but little over $500,000, against $6,000,000 
now. In fact fifty per cent, more postage is paid at the pres¬ 
ent time on newspapers and magazines, than was paid on 
letters, newspapers, and every description of mailable mat¬ 
ter in 1810. The great impulse has been given since 1830. 
At that period there were only 115,000 miles of post-routes, 
whereas now there are nearly twice that quantity. Then 
there were less than 9,000 post-offices; now there are over 
23,000. The last five-and-twenty years have, therefore, ex¬ 
hibited a progress, in this department of civilization, that is 
in advance even of the growth of the population, rapid as 
that has been. 

The whole number of mail-routes now existing in the 
United States, is 6,692 ; aggregate length 217,743 miles ; an¬ 
nual transportation 61,892,542 miles; ofwhich there.are on 
rail-roads 12,986,705 miles; on steamboats 6,685,065 miles; 
in coaches 21,330,326 miles; and in modes not specified, 
20,890,446 miles. And yet notwithstanding these statistics, 
which show a progress within a century almost exceeding 
belief, the American postal system is the worst managed 
department of the government, inferior to the systems of 
England or France, and a disgrace to the nation. 

When William Hutton, in the middle of last century, 
started from Nottingham (where he earned a scanty living 
as a bookbinder) and walked to London and back for the 
purpose of buying tools, he was nine days from home, six 
of which were spent in going and returning. He traveled 
on foot, dreading robbers, and still more dreading the cost 
of food and lodging at public houses. His whole expenses 
during this toilsome expedition were only ten shillings and 
eight pence; but he contented himself with the barest neces¬ 
saries, keeping the money for his tools sewed up his shirt- 


238 INTRODUCTION OF STAGE-COACHES. 

collar. If William Hutton had lived in these days, he would, 
upon sheer principles of economy, have gone to London 
by the rail-road train at a cost of twenty shillings for his 
transit, in one forenoon, and returned in another. The 
twenty shillings would have been sacrificed for his convey¬ 
ance, but he would have had a week’s labor free to go to 
work with his new tools; he need not have sewed his 
money in his shirt-collar for fear of thieves; and his shoes 
would not have been worn out and his feet blistered in his 
toilsome march of two hundred and fifty miles. 

In consequence of the inattention of the people of En¬ 
gland and the continent of Europe to roads, and the 
wretched state in which these were usually kept, it was 
long before the use of coaches of any kind came into fash¬ 
ion. Although wheeled vehicles of various kinds were in 
use among the ancients, the close carriage, or coach, is of 
modern invention. Charles I. was the first English sove¬ 
reign who had a state coach, and a Scotch writer of 1617 
speaks of coaches as recently introduced and still rare in 
Scotland. 

It is a very curious fact that the same sort of complaints 
which have been made in England and the United States, 
within the past thirty years, respecting the introduction of 
rail-way communication, were also made when coaches were 
first introduced. In a pamphlet called the “ Great Concern 
of England Explained ,” published in 1673, the writer very 
gravely attempts to make out that the introduction of 
coaches was ruining the trade of England. The following 
is an example of his method of reasoning : “ Before coaches 
were set up, travelers rode on horseback, and jnen had 
boots, spurs, saddles, bridles, Saddle-cloths, and good riding- 
suits, coats and cloaks, stockings and hats, whereby the 
wood and leather of the kingdom was consumed. Besides, 
most gentlemen, when they traveled on horseback, used to 


INTRODUCTION OP STAGE-COACIIES. 


239 


ride with swords, belts, pistols, holsters, portmanteaus and 
hat-cases, for which in these coaches they have little or no 
occasion. For when they rode on horseback, they rode 
in one suit, and carried another to wear when they came to 
their journey’s end; but in coaches they ride in a silk suit, 
silk stockings, beaver hats, etc., and carry no other with 
them. This is because they escape the wet and dirt, which 
upon horseback they can not avoid; whereas, in two or 
three journeys on horseback, these clothes and hats were 
wont to be spoiled; which done they were forced to have 
new very often, and that increased the consumption of man¬ 
ufactures.” Further on the same writer puts the following 
query: “ Is it for a man’s health or business to be laid fast 
in four ways; to ride all day with strangers, oftentimes 
sick, diseased, ancient persons, or young children crying; 
all whose humors he is obliged to put up with, and is often 
poisoned by their nasty scents, and crippled with their 
boxes and bundles ?” As an additional objection against 
the introduction of coaches, the writer urges that they will 
discourage the breeding, and lessen the value of horses, an 
argument which, it is amusing to observe, was used in Mas¬ 
sachusetts a few years since, when it was proposed to con¬ 
struct the rail-road from Boston to Albany. Arguments of 
a similar absurd nature are now used in reference to almost 
every proposed amelioration of our social condition, and 
will, doubtless, a century hence, be quoted as evidence of 
the short-sightedness of the present generation, although 
they now receive countenance and support from a large 
proportion of the community. 

Notwithstanding the introduction of stage-coaches into 
England, the popular mode of transportation, up to the 
commencement of the present century, was by means of 
large cumbersome wagons, drawn by six or eight horses, 
and devoted chiefly to the carriage of merchandise. The 


240 


RESULTS OF IMPROVED LOCOMOTION. 


only part of the vehicle which afforded accommodation to 
passengers was the tail of the wagon, as it was called—a 
reserved space at the hind end—and here, seated upon 
straw, the passengers were slowly conveyed upon their 
journey. The incidents of travel in these vehicles are 
graphically described by Smollet, in his story of Roderick 
Random. Wagons of a similar character afe still in use in 
Virginia, for the transportation of goods and plantation 
produce. They are provided with huge broad wheels, cov¬ 
ered with canvas sustained upon hoops, and usually drawn 
by six horses or mules, the driver riding upon one of them. 
They are extremely unwieldy in form and structure, and 
are usually drawn with a needless expenditure of power. 



BRIDGE AND ROAD AMONG THE ANDES. 


A very few years ago it was not uncommon to hear men 
say that the wonderful results of improved locomotion, the 
greatest triumphs of modern skill, were not a blessing; for 
the machinery had put somebody out of employ. Baron 






INFLUENCE OF RAIL-ROADS. 


241 


Humboldt, a traveler in South America, tells us that, upon 
a road being made over a part of the great chain of mount¬ 
ains called the Andes, the government was petitioned against 
the road by a body of men who for centuries had gained a 
living by carrying travelers in baskets strapped upon their 
backs over the fearful rocks, which only these guides could 
cross. Which was the better course, to make the road, 
and create the thousand employments belonging to freedom 
of intercourse, for these very carriers of travelers, and for 
all other men, or to leave the mountains without a road, 
that the poor guides might gain a premium for risking their 
lives in an unnecessary peril ? But, looking at their direct 
results, we have no doubt that rail-roads have greatly mul¬ 
tiplied the employments connected with the conveyance of 
goods and passengers. In 1853 there were eighty thousand 
persons employed upon the rail-roads of Great Britain in 
various capacities. This does not include those empleryed 
in working upon lines that are not open for traffic, which 
class in England amounted to twenty-five thousand persons 
in 1853. But the indirect occupations called into activity 
by rail-roads are so numerous as to defy all attempts at cal¬ 
culating the numbers engaged in them. No doubt many 
occupations have been changed by rail-roads; there are 
fewer coachmen, postboys, wagoners, and the like. But it 
is equally certain that both in England and the United States 
there are far more persons employed at present than for¬ 
merly in conducting the internal communications of the two 
countries, effecting that great addition to their productive 
powers, without which all other production would languish 
and decay. 

The vast extension, and the new channels of our foreign 
commerce have been greatly affected by the prodigious facil¬ 
ities of our internal communication. They have created, in 
a measure, special departments of industry, which can be 

11 


242 


TRAVELING IN LAPLAND. 


most advantageously pursued in particular localities; but 
which rail-ways and steam-vessels have united with the 
whole country and with the habitable globe. The reindeer 
connects the Laplander with the markets of Sweden, and 
draws his sledge over the frozen wilds at a speed and power 
of continuance only rivaled by the locomotive. The same 
beneficent Providence which has given this animal to the 
inhabitant of the polar regions—not only for food, for cloth¬ 
ing, but for transport to associate him with some civiliza¬ 
tion—has bestowed upon us the mighty power of steam, to 
connect us with the entire world, and render nations, other¬ 
wise distant, near neighbors. 



TllAYELING IN LAPLAND. 






CHAPTER XVI. 


HOUSES.—THE PYRAMIDS.—MECHANICAL POWER.—CARPENTERS’ TOOLS.—AMERICAN 
MACHINERY FOR BUILDING.—BRICKS.—SLATE.—HOUSEHOLD FITTINGS AND FUR¬ 
NITURE. — PAPER-HANGINGS. — CARPETS. — GLASS. — POTTERY. — PALISSY AND 
WEDGEWOOD.—COMMERCIAL VALUE OF TASTE. 

The beaver builds his huts with the tools which nature 
has given him. He gnaws pieces of wood in two with his 
sharp teeth, so sharp that the teeth of a similar animal, the 
agouti, form the only cutting-tool which some rude nations 
possess. When the beavers desire to move a large piece of 
wood, they join in a body to drag it along. 

Man has not teeth that will cut wood : but he has reason, 
which directs him to the choice of much more perfect tools. 

Some of the great monuments of antiquity, such as the 
pyramids of Egypt, are constructed of enormous blocks of 
stone brought from distant quarries. We have no means of 
estimating, with any accuracy, the mechanical knowledge 
possessed by the people engaged in these works. It was, 
probably, very small, and, consequently, the human labor 
employed in such edifices was not only enormous in quan¬ 
tity, but exceedingly painful to the workmen. The Egyp¬ 
tians, according to Herodotus, a Greek writer who lived 
two thousand five hundred years ago, hated the memory of 
the kings who built the pyramids. He tells us that the 
great pyramid occupied a hundred thousand men for twenty 
years- in its erection without counting the workmen who 
were employed in hewing the stones, and in conveying 


244 


THE PYRAMIDS. 


them to the spot where the pyramid was built. Herodotus 
speaks of this work as a torment to the people ; and doubt¬ 
less the labor engaged in raising huge masses of stone, 
that was extensive enough to employ a hundred thousand 
men for twenty years, which is equal to two millions of 
men for one year, must have been fearfully tormenting 
without machinery, or with very imperfect machinery. It 
has been calculated that about half the steam-engines of 
England, worked by thirty-six thousand men, would raise 



PYRAMIDS AND SPHYNX. 


the same quantity of stones from the quarry, and elevate 
them to the same height as the great pyramid, in the short 
time of eighteen hours. The people of Egypt groaned for 
twenty years under this enormous work. The laborers 
groaned because they were sorely taxed; and the rest of 
the people groaned because they had to pay the laborers. 
The laborers lived, it is true, upon the wages of their 
labor, that is, they were paid in food—kept like horses— 
as the reward of their work. Herodotus says that it was 






THE PYRAMIDS. 


245 


recorded on the pyramid that the onions, radishes, and 
garlic which the laborers consumed, cost sixteen hundred 
talents of silver; an immense sum, equivalent to several 
millions of dollars. But the onions, radishes, and garlic, the 
bread, and clothes of the laborer, were wrung out of the 
profitable labor of the rest of the people. The building of 
the pyramid was an unprofitable labor. There was no im¬ 
mediate or future source of profit in the pyramid; it pro¬ 
duced neither food, nor fuel, nor clothes, nor any other 
necessary. The labor of a hundred thousand men for 
twenty years, stupidly employed upon this monument, with¬ 
out an object beyond that of gratifying the pride of the 
tyrant who raised it, was a direct tax upon the profitable 
labor of the rest of the people. 

“ Instead of useful works, like nature great, 

Enormous cruel wonders crushed the land.” 

But admitting that it is sometimes desirable for nations 
and governments to erect monuments which are not of 
direct utility—which may have an indirect utility in record¬ 
ing the memory of great exploits, or in producing feelings 
of reverence or devotion—it is clearly an advantage that 
these works, as well as all other works, should be performed 
in the cheapest manner; that is, that human labor should 
derive every possible assistance from mechanical aid. We 
will give an illustration of the differences of the application 
of mechanical aid in one of the first ojoerations of building 
—the moving a block of stone. The following statements 
are the result of actual experiment upon a stone weighing 
ten hundred and eighty pounds: 

To drag this stone along the smoothed floor of the quarry 
required a force equal to seven hundred and fifty-eight 
pounds. The same stone dragged over a floor of planks 
required six hundred and fifty-two pounds. The same stone 
placed on a platform of wood, and dragged over the same 


246 


MECHANICAL POWER. 


floor of planks, required six hundred and six pounds. When 
the two surfaces of wood were soaped as they slid over each 
other, the force required to drag the stone was reduced to 
one hundred and eighty-two pounds. When the same stone 
was placed upon rollers three inches in diameter, it re¬ 
quired, to put it in motion along the floor of the quarry, a 
force only of thirty-four pounds; and by the same rollers 
upon a wooden floor, a force only of twenty-eight pounds. 
Without any mechanical aid, it would require the force of 
four or five men to set that stone in motion. With the 
mechanical aid of tw r o surfaces of wood soaped, the same 
weight might be moved by one man. With the more per¬ 
fect mechanical aid of rollers, the same weight might be 
moved by a very little child. 

From these statements it must be evident that the cost 
of a block of stone very much depends upon the quantity 
of labor necessary to move it from the quarry to the place 
where it is wanted to be used. We have seen that with 
the simplest mechanical aid labor may be reduced sixty¬ 
fold. With more perfect mechanical aid, such as that of 
water-carriage, the labor may be reduced infinitely lower. 
Thus, the streets of New Orleans are paved with granite 
from Massachusetts at a moderate expense. 

The cost of timber, which enters so largely into the cost 
of a house, is in a great degree the cost of transport. In 
countries where there are great forests, timber-trees are 
worth nothing where they grow, except there are ready 
means of transport. In many parts of the United States 
and Canada, the great difficulty which the people find is 
in clearing the land of the timber. The finest trees are not 
only worthless, but are a positive incumbrance, except 
when they are growing upon the banks of a great river; 
in which case the logs are thrown into the water, or formed 
into rafts, being floated several hundred miles at scarcely 


MECHANICAL POWER. 


247 


any expense. The same stream which carries them to a 
seaport turns a mill to saw the logs into planks; and when 
sawn into planks the timber is put on shipboard, and car¬ 
ried to other districts where timber is wanted. Thus 
mechanical aid alone gives a value to the timber, and by 
so doing employs human labor. The stream that floats 
the tree, the sawing-mill that cuts it, the ship that carries 
it across the sea, enable men profitably to employ them¬ 
selves in working it. Without the stream, the mill, and 
the ship, those men would have no labor, because none 
could afford to bring the timber to their own doors. 

What an infinite variety of machines, in combination 
with the human hand, is found in a carpenter’s chest of 
tools! The skillful hand of the workman is the power which 
sets these machines in motion; just as the wind or the 
water is the power of a mill, or the elastic force of vapor 
the power of a steam-engine. When Mr. Boulton, the 
partner of the great James Watt, waited upon George III. 
to explain one of the improvements of the steam-engine 
which they had effected, the king said to him, “ What do 
you sell, Mr. Boulton?” and the honest engineer answ r ered, 
“What kings, sire, are all fond of —power” There are 
people at the present time who let out power , that is, there 
are people who have steam-engines who will lend the use of 
them, by the day or the hour, to persons who require that 
saving of labor in their various trades; so that a person 
who wants the strength of a horse, or half a horse, to turn 
a wheel for grinding, or for setting a lathe in motion, hires 
a room, or part of a room, in a mill, and has just as much 
as he requires. The power of a carpenter is in his hand, 
and the machines moved by that power are in his chest of 
tools. Every tool which he possesses has for its object to 
reduce labor, to save material, and to insure accuracy— 
the objects of all machines. What a quantity of waste 


248 


carpenters’ tools. 


both of time and stuff is saved by his foot-rule! and when 
he chalks a bit of string and stretches it from one end of a 
plank to the other, to jerk off the chalk from the string, 
and thus produce an unerring line upon the face of the 
plank, he makes a little machine which saves him great 
labor. Every one of his hundreds of tools, capable of 
application to a vast variety of purposes, is an invention to 
save labor. Without some tool the carpenter’s work could 
not be done at all by the human hand. A knife would do 
very laboriously what is done very quickly by a hatchet. 
The labor of using a hatchet, and the material which it 
wastes, are saved twenty times over by the saw. But 
when the more delicate operations of carpentry are re¬ 
quired—when the workman uses his planes, his molding 
tools, his chisels, his bevels, and his center-bits—what an 
infinitely greater quantity of labor is economized, and 
how beautifully that work is performed, which, without 
them, would be rough and imperfect! Every boy of 
mechanical ingenuity has tried with his knife to make a 
boat; and with a knife only it is the work of weeks. Give 
him a chisel, and a gouge, and a vice to hold his wood, 
and the little boat is the work of a day. Let a boy try to 
make a round wooden box, with a lid, having only his 
knife, and he must be expert indeed to produce any thing 
that will be neat and serviceable. Give him a lathe and 
chisels, and he will learn to make a tidy box in half an 
hour. Nothing but absolute necessity can render it ex¬ 
pedient to use an imperfect tool instead of a perfect. 
We sometimes see exhibitions of carving, “ all done with 
the common penknife.” Professor Willis has truly said, 
with reference to such weak boasting, “ So far from • ad¬ 
miring, we should pity the vanity and folly of such a dis¬ 
play ; and the more, if the work should show a natural 
aptitude in the workman: for it is certain that, if he has 


AMERICAN MACHINERY FOR BUILDING. 


249 


made good work with a bad tool, he would make better 
with a good one.” 

The German Emperor Maximilian, at the beginning of 
the sixteenth century, ordered a woodcut to be engraved 
that should represent the carpentry operations of his time 
and country. This prince was, no doubt, proud of the 



CARPENTERS AND THEIR TOOLS. (FROM AN OLD GERMAN WOODCUT.) 


advance of Germany in the useful arts. If the President 
of the United States were thus to record the advance of 
our republic, he would point to our saw-mills, our planing- 
mills, our machines for veneering, for turning gun-stocks, 
shoe-lasts, or for producing elaborate moldings and carv¬ 
ings. The German carpenters, as we see, are reducing a 
great slab of wood into shape by the saw and the ^idze. 
We now have planing-mills, with cutters that make 4000 
revolutions, and which plane boards eighteen feet long at 
the rate of fifty feet per minute; and while the face of 
the board is planed, it is tongued and grooved at the 

11 * 









250 


AMERICAN MACHINERY FOR BUILDING. 


same time—that is, one board is made to fit closely into 
another. 

Machinery has been applied in the United States to the 
working of wood to a greater extent than in any other 
country. Mr. Whitworth, the English Commissioner to the 
New York Exhibition in 1853, in his report on the mechan¬ 
ical novelties observed by him in this country, describes 
with particular interest the operations of the planing, tenon¬ 
ing, morticing, and jointing machines, all of which are com¬ 
paratively unknown in Europe. In England, a paneled 
door is one of the most expensive fixtures of a house. In 
this country, however, by the aid of our labor-saving ma¬ 
chines, twenty men can make paneled doors at the rate of 
a hundred per day—that is, one man can make five doors. 
The same is true respecting the comparative cost of manu¬ 
facturing window-frames, staircases, moldings, cornices, etc., 
in England and the United States. In the former country, 
they are mainly produced by hand-labor, in the latter, al¬ 
most altogether by machinery. If doors and windows and 
staircases can be made cheaper, more houses and better 
houses will be built; and thus more carpenters will be em¬ 
ployed in building than if those parts of a house w~ere made 
by hand. The same principle applies to machines as to 
tools. If carpenters had not tools to make houses, there 
would be few houses made; and those that were made 
would be as rough as the hut of the savage who has no 
tools. The people would go without houses, and the car¬ 
penter would go without work—to say nothing of the peo¬ 
ple, who would also go without work, that now make tools 
for tlfe carpenter. 

Every invention that reduces the cost of a material, i. e ., 
makes it cheaper, increases the consumption, and conse¬ 
quently the demand for it. Bricks are every year used to 
a greater extent for the purposes of construction, in the 


BRICK. 


251 



EGYPTIAN BRICK-MAKING. 


place of wood, because clay suitable for their preparation is 
found almost every where, while timber is gradually becom¬ 
ing scarcer and dearer. 

Bricks, regarded as 
the production of a 
vast aniount of labor, 
are intrinsically cheap, 
because they are made 
of what is truly ma¬ 
chinery ; the usual pro¬ 
cess differing but slight¬ 
ly from those adopted 
by the Egyptians three thousand years ago. 

The clay is ground in a horse-mill; the wooden mold, in 
which every brick is made singly, is a copying machine. 
One brick is exactly like another brick. Every brick is of 
the form of the mold in which it is made. Without the 
mold the workman could not make the brick of uniform 
dimensions; and without this uniformity the after labor of 
putting bricks together would be greatly increased. With¬ 
out the mold the workman could not form the bricks quick¬ 
ly ; his own labor would be increased tenfold. The simple 
machine of the mold not only gives employment to a great 
many brickmakers who would not be employed at all, but 
also to a great many bricklayers who would also want em¬ 
ployment if the original cost of production were so enor¬ 
mously increased. Within a few years a machine has been 
invented in the United States, which bids fair to greatly 
reduce the price of bricks, and at the same time manufac¬ 
ture them of superior quality. The clay used, enters the 
machine dry, and by means of a combination of rollers and 
sieves, is reduced to a uniform degree of fineness. The pul¬ 
verized clay then passes into the press of the machine, where 
there are molds for six bricks, into which it falls, and imme- 









252 


SLATE.-HARDWARE. 


diately is subjected to an immense pressure. This pressure 
gives it the shape and character of bricks directly, which are 
delivered from the machine upon a little frame so rapidly, 
that it requires the constant labor of two men to put the 
bricks into wheelbarrows. They are then conveyed di¬ 
rectly to the kiln, without the necessity of any intermediate 
process whatever. The molds being exactly shaped, and 
made of metal, and the clay, being by the immense pressure 
brought to bear upon it, perfectly fitted to the molds ; these 
unburnt bricks have a marble-like smoothness of surface, 
and are of exquisite accuracy of shape, altogether surpass¬ 
ing those made in the ordinary way. The number of 
bricks which one machine can thus make in an hour ex¬ 
ceeds twenty-five hundred. 

There is another material for building which was little 
used at the beginning of the century, viz., slate. The con¬ 
sumption of slate in London alone was, in 1851, from thirty 
thousand to forty thousand tons per annum. In the produc¬ 
tion of this one material, eight thousand quarriers are em¬ 
ployed in Great Britain. - 

How great a variety of things are contained in a hard¬ 
ware store! Half the goods consist of tools of one sort or 
another to save labor; and the other half consists of articles 
of convenience or elegance most perfectly adapted to every 
possible want of the builder or the maker of furniture. 
The uncivilized man is delighted when he obtains a nail—any 
nail. A carpenter and joiner, who supply the wants of a 
highly civilized community, are not satisfied unless they 
have a choice of nails, from the finest brad to the largest 
spike. A savage thinks a nail will hold two pieces of wood 
together more completely than any thing else in the world. 
It is seldom, however, that he can afford to put it to such a 
use. If it is large enough, he makes it into a chisel. An 
American joiner knows that screws will do the work more 


HARDWARE. 


253 


perfectly in some cases than any nail; and therefore we 
have as great a variety of screws as of nails. The common¬ 
est house built has hinges, and locks, and bolts. A great 
number are finished with ornamented knobs to door-handles, 
with bells and bell-pulls, and a thousand other things that^ 
have grown up into necessities, because they save domestic 
labor, and add to domestic comfort. And many of these 
things really are necessities. M. Say, a French writer, gives 
us an example of this; and as his story is an amusing one, 
besides having a moral, we may as well copy it: 

“ Being in the country,” says he, “ I had an example of 
one of those small losses which a family is exposed to 
through negligence. For the want of a latchet of small 
value, the wicket of a barn-yard leading to the fields was 
often left open. Every one who went through drew the 
door to: but as there was nothing to fasten the door with, 
it was always left flapping; sometimes open, and sometimes 
shut. So the cocks and hens, and the chickens, got out, 
and were lost. One day a fine pig got out, and ran off into 
the woods; and after the pig ran all the people about the 
place—the gardener, and the cook, and the dairymaid. The 
gardener first caught sight of the runaway, and, hastening 
after it, sprained his ankle; in consequence of which the 
poor man was not able to get out of the house again for a 
fortnight. The cook found, when she came back from pur¬ 
suing the pig, that the linen she had left by the fire had 
fallen down and was burning; and the dairymaid having, in 
her haste, neglected to tie up one of her cows, the cow had 
kicked a colt, which was in the same stable, and broken its 
leg. The gardener’s lost time was worth twenty crowns, 
to say nothing of the pain he suffered. The linen which 
was burned, and the colt which was spoiled, were worth as 
much more. Here, then, was caused a loss of forty crowns, 
as well as much trouble, plague, and vexation, for the want 


254 


HARDWARE. 


of a latch which would not have cost threepence.” M. Say’s 
story is one of the many examples of the truth of the old 
proverb—“ for want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of 
a shoe the horse was lost, for want of a horse the man was 
lost.” 

Nearly all the great variety of articles in a hardware 
store are made by machinery. Without machinery they 
could not be made at all, or they would be sold at a price 
which would prevent them being commonly used. Some 
of the finer articles, such as a lock, could not be made at all, 
unless machinery had been called in to produce that won¬ 
derful accuracy, through which no one of a hundred thou¬ 
sand locks and keys shall be exactly like another lock and 
key. With machinery, the manufacture of hardware em¬ 
ploys large numbers of artisans who would be otherwise 
unemployed. There are hundreds of ingenious men in New 
England who go into business with a capital acquired by 
their savings as workmen, for the purpose of manufacturing 
some one single article used in finishing a house, such as 
the knob of a lock, a screw, a hinge, or a window-fastener. 
All the heavy work of their trade is done by machinery. 
The cheapness of the article creates workmen; and the 
savings of the workmen accumulate capital to be expended 
in large works, and to employ more workmen. 

The furniture of a house, some may say—the chairs, and 
tables, and bedsteads—is made nearly altogether by hand. 
True. But tools are machines; and further, we owe it to 
what men generally call machinery, that such furniture, 
even in the house of a very poor man, is more tasteful in its 
construction, and of finer material, than that possessed by a 
rich man a hundred years ago. How is this ? Machinery 
(that is ships) has brought us much finer woods than we 
grow oifrselves; and other machinery (the sawing-mill) has 
taught us how to render that fine wood very cheap, by 


HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE. 


255 


economising the use of it. At a veneering-mill, that is, a 
mill which cuts a mahogany log into thin plates, much more 
delicately and truly, and in infinitely less time, than they 
could be cut by the hand, two hundred and forty square feet 
of mahogany are cut by one circular saw in one hour. A 
veneer, or thin plate, is cut off a piece of mahogany, six 
feet six inches long, by twelve inches wide, in twenty-five 
seconds. What is the consequence of this ? A mahogany 
table is made almost as cheap as a deal one; and thus the 
humblest family may have some article of mahogany, if it 
be only a work-stand. And let it not be said that pine fur¬ 
niture would afford as much happiness ; for a desire for com¬ 
fort, and even for some degree of elegance, gives a refine¬ 
ment to the character, and, in a certain degree, raises our 
self-respect. Diogenes, who is said to have lived in a tub, 
was a great philosopher; but it is not necessary to live in a 
tub to be wise and virtuous. Nor is that the likeliest plan 
for becoming so. The probability is, that a man will be 
more wise and virtuous in proportion as he strives to sur¬ 
round himself with the comforts and decent ornaments of 
his station. 

It is a circumstance worthy to be borne in mind by all who 
seek the improvement of the people, that whatever raises 
not only the standard of comfort, but of taste, has direct 
effects of utility which might not at first be perceived. We 
will take the case of paper-hangings. Their very name 
shows that they were a substitute for the tapestry or hang¬ 
ings, of former times, which were suspended from the ceil¬ 
ings to cover the imperfections of the walls. This was the 
case in the house of the rich. The poor man in his hut had 
no such device, but must needs u patch a hole to keep the 
wind away.” When paper-hangings were prepared and 
ornamented by hand, as they once were, their cost was very 
great, and in place of them many walls were daubed, or 


256 


PAPER-HANGINGS.-CARPETS. 


stenciled over in rude patterns with paint. The paper- 
hangings themselves, when used, were not only expensive, 
hut offensive to the eye, from their want of harmony in 
color and of beauty in design. The old papers remained on 
walls for years ; and it was not till paper-hangings became 
cheap that the landlord or tenant of a small house thought 
of re-papering. The eye at length got offended by the dirty 
and ugly old paper. The walls were re-covered with neat 
patterns. But what had offended the eye had been preju¬ 
dicial to the health. The old papers, that were saturated 
with damp from without and bad air from within, were re¬ 
cipients and holders of fever. When the bed-room became 
neat it also became healthful. The paper-hanger used to 
paste together yard after yard, made by hand at the paper- 
mill, and stamped by a block. The paper-machine which 
gave long rolls of paper enabled hangings to be printed by 
a cylinder as calico is now printed. The improvement of 
the manufacture by machinery, has now enabled every man 
to re-paper his room for almost as little as its whitewash¬ 
ing or coloring would cost him. 

Look again at the carpet. Contrast it in all its varieties, 
from the gorgeous Persian to the neat Kidderminster, with 
the rushes of our forefathers, amid which the dogs hunted 
for the bones that had been thrown upon the floor. The 
clean rushes were a rare luxury, never thought of but upon 
some festive occasion. The carpet manufacture was little 
known in England at the beginning of the last century ; as 
we may judge from our still calling one of the most com¬ 
monly-woven English carpets by the name of “ Brussels.” 
The Scotch carpet is the cheapest of the produce of the 
carpet-loom; and it may be sufficient to show the connec¬ 
tion of machinery with the commonest as well as the finest 
of these productions by an engraving of the loom. One 
of the most beautiful inventions of man, the Jacquard ap- 


CARPETS.-GLASS. 


257 


paratus (so called from the name of its inventor), is exten¬ 
sively used in every branch of the carpet manufacture. 



SCOTCH CAEPET-LOOM. 


Let us see what mechanical ingenuity can effect in pro¬ 
ducing the most useful and ornamental articles of domestic 
life from the common earth which may be had for digging. 
Without chemical and mechanical skill we should neither 
have glass nor pottery; and without these articles how 
much lowered beneath his present station, in point of com¬ 
fort and convenience, would be the humblest laborer in the 
land! 

The cost of glass is almost wholly made up of the wages 
of labor, as the materials are very abundant, and may be 
















258 


GLASS. 


said to cost almost nothing ; and jglass is much more easily 
worked than any other substance. 

Hard and brittle as it is, it has only to be heated, and 
any form that the workman pleases may be given to it. It 
melts ; but when so hot as to be more susceptible of form 
than wax, or clay, or any thing else that we are acquainted 
with, it still retains a degree of toughness and capability of 
extension superior to that of many solids, and of every 
liquid; when it has become red-hot all its brittleness is 
gone, and a man may do with it as he pleases. He may 
press it into a mold; he may take a lump of it upon the 
end of. an iron tube, and by blowing into the tube with his 
mouth (keeping the glass hot all the time), he may swell 
it out into a hollow ball. He may mold that ball into a 
bottle; he may draw it out lengthways into a pipe; he may 
cut it open into a cup; he may open it with shears, whirl 
it round with the edge in the fire, and thus make it into a 
circular plate. He may also roll it out into sheets, and spin 
it into threads as fine as a cobweb. In short, so that he 
keeps it hot, and away from substances by which it may 
be destroyed, he can do with it just as he pleases. All this, 
too, may be done, and is done with large quantities every 
day, in less time than any one would take to give an ac¬ 
count of it. In the time that the readiest speaker and 
clearest describer were telling how one quart bottle is made, 
an ordinary set of workmen would make some dozens of 
bottles. 

But though the materials of glass are among the cheapest 
of all materials, and the substance the most obedient to the 
hand of the workman, there is a great deal of knowledge 
necessary before glass can be made. It can be made profit¬ 
ably only at large manufactories, and those manufactories 
must be kept constantly at work night and day. 

As a natural product, glass can hardly be said to exist. 


GLASS. 


259 


Among the various substances, however, which are thrown 
out by volcanoes, we sometimes find fused masses of earthy 
materials, which, in some respects, resemble impure glass, 
or coarse pottery. Rock, or quartz crystal, which resembles 
glass, is altogether a different substance. The sight of it, 
however, may possibly have suggested to men the idea of 
fabricating a similar substance by art. The fabrication of 
glass is of high antiquity. The historians of China, Japan, 
and Tartary speak of glass manufactories existing there 
more than two thousand years ago. Egyptian mummies, 
two or three thousand years old, are frequently found, 
which are ornamented with little fragments of colored glass. 
The writings of Seneca, a Roman author who lived about 
the time of our Saviour, and of St. Jerome, who lived five 
hundred years afterward, speak of glass being used in win¬ 
dows. It is recorded that the prior of a convent in Dor¬ 
setshire, England, in the year 6 74, sent for French workmen 
to glaze the windows of his chapel. In the twelfth century 
the art of making glass was known in England. Yet it is 
very doubtful whether glass was employed in windows, ex¬ 
cepting those of churches and the houses of the very rich, 
for several centuries afterward ; and it is quite certain that 
the period is comparatively recent, as we have shown, when 
glass windows were used for excluding cold and admitting 
light in the houses of the great body of the people, or that 
glass vessels were to be found among their ordinary con¬ 
veniences. The manufacture of glass in England now em¬ 
ploys twelve thousand people, because the article, being 
cheap, is of universal use. 

Machinery, as we commonly understand the term, is not 
much employed in the manufacture of glass; but chemistry, 
which saves us as much labor as machinery, and performs 
work which no machinery could accomplish, is very largely 
employed. 


260 


GLASS. 


The materials of which glass is composed, are sand and an 
alkali, either potash or soda. To these ingredients are gen¬ 
erally added an oxyd of lead, called litharge, or red-lead, a 
little lime, and, for colored glass, various metallic compounds. 
Sand suitable for the manufacture of the nicest varieties of 
glass, was formerly obtained with great difficulty. Ordi¬ 
nary sand contains iron, which imparts a color to the glass. 
Sand was even sent to England from Australia, and to New 
England from Florida. Within a few years, the finest glass 
sand has been discovered in Berkshire county, Massachu¬ 
setts, and from this source nearly all manufactories of nice 
glass in the world are now supplied. The various materials 
which enter into the composition of glass, are mixed together 
and subjected to an intense heat, in a peculiarly-constructed 
furnace. It requires a red heat of sixty hours to prepare 
the material of a common bottle. Nearly all glass, except 
glass for mirrors, is what is called blown. The machinery 
is very simple, consisting only of an iron pipe and the lungs 
of the workman; and the process is perfected in all its stages 
by great subdivision of labor, producing extreme neatness 
and quickness in all persons employed in it. For instance, 
a wine-glass is made thus: One man (the blower) takes up 
the proper quantity of glass on his pipe, and blows it to the 
size wanted for the bowl; then he whirls it round on a reel, 
and draws out the stalk. Another man (the footer) blows 
a smaller and thicker ball, sticks it to the end of the stalk 
of the blower’s glass, and breaks his pipe from it. The 
blower opens that ball, and whirls the whole round till the 
foot is formed. Then a boy dips a small rod in the glass- 
pot, and sticks it to the very center of the foot. The blower, 
still turning the glass round, takes a bit of iron, wets it in 
his mouth, and touches the ball at the place where he wishes 
the mouth of the glass to be. The glass separates, and the 
boy takes it to the finisher, who turns the mouth of it; and, 


GLASS. 


261 


by a peculiar swing that he gives it round his head, makes 
it perfectly circular, at the same time that it is so hardened 
as to he easily snapped from the rod. Lastly, the boy takes 
it on a forked iron to the annealing furnace, where it is 
cooled gradually. 

All these operations require the greatest nicety in the 
workmen; and would take a long time in the performance, 
and not be very neatly done after all, if they were all done 
by one man. But the quickness with which they are done 
by the division of labor is perfectly wonderful. 

The cheapness of glass for common use, which cheapness 
is produced by chemical knowledge and the division of 
labor, has set the ingenuity of man to work to give greater 
beauty to glass as an article of luxury. The employment of 
sharp-grinding wheels, put in motion by a treadle, and used 
in conjunction with a very nice hand, produces cut glass. 
Cut glass is now comparatively so cheap, that scarcely a 
family of the middle ranks is without some beautiful article 
of this manufacture. 

Ordinary drinking-glasses, lamps, etc., are made in imita¬ 
tion of cut glass, by subjecting a portion of the melted glass 
to pressure in a mold. Articles of great beauty, but of a less 
cost, closely resembling cut glass, are made in this manner. 

The reduction of the cost of the manufacture of glass has 
had the effect of improving the architecture of our houses 
to a very great degree. We have now plate-glass of the 
largest dimensions, giving light and beauty to our shops; 
and sheet-glass, nearly as effective as plate, adorning our 
private dwellings. Sheet-glass, in the making of which an 
amount of ingenuity is exercised which would have been 
thought impossible in the early stages of glass-making, is 
doing for the ordinary purposes of building what plate-glass 
did formerly for the rich. A portion of melted glass, weigh¬ 
ing twelve or fourteen pounds, is, by the exercise of this 


262 


GLASS. 


skill, converted into a ball, and then into a cylinder, and 
then into a flat plate; and thus two crystal palaces have 
been built in England, which have consumed as much glass, 
weight by weight, as was required for all the houses in one 
fourth of the area of Great Britain in the beginning of the 
century. 

“ Thus the use of glass in our windows, instead of the 
shutters of our ancestors, has introduced comfort into the 
meanest dwelling, which did not formerly belong to the 
richest palace. By means of this contrivance, the light is 
filtered from the wind, the rain, and the cold; we can en¬ 
joy the one without being inconvenienced by the others; 
and we can, in conjunction with our method of warming, 
create an in-door climate adapted to our feelings and desires. 
The use of glass in many of our domestic articles of furniture 
and vessels, contributes to cleanliness and health, for the 
slightest soil upon our glasses and decanters is revealed by 
this most transparent material, and the purity of water and 
other liquids contained in them, is physically tested by the 
same means. Even the mirror which adorns our rooms, 
reminds us of the necessary attention to personal appear¬ 
ance, which self-respect, as well as respect for society de¬ 
mands. By means of glass the eye of advancing age re¬ 
gains something of its youthful vigor. By means of glass 
the astronomer makes us acquainted with distant worlds, 
and the microscopist with the inhabitants of a drop of water. 
By means of glass the physicist has discovered the physical 
properties of the atmosphere, and the chemist its equally 
wonderful chemical properties. Indeed, science is greatly 
indebted for its progress to the convenient chambers of 
glass of every variety of shape and form, so easily and so 
cheaply procured, within whose transparent walls processes 
can be isolated and watched without danger to the operator. 
The whole of pneumatic chemistry depends on glass; as does 


POTTERY. 


263 


also the existence of most chemical acids and mineral rea¬ 
gents, which could never have been discovered, or if dis¬ 
covered, preserved for any length of time, but for glass 
retorts and glass bottles.” 

There are two kinds of pottery—common potters’ ware 
and porcelain. The first is a pure kind of brick, and the 
second a mixture of very fine brick and glass. Almost all 
nations have some knowledge of pottery; and those of the 
very hot countries are sometimes satisfied with dishes formed 
by their fingers without any tool, and dried by the heat of 
the sun. In all countries, however, good pottery must be 
baked or burned in a kiln of some kind or other. 

Vessels for holding meat and drink are almost as indis¬ 
pensable as the meat and drink themselves; and the two 
qualities in them that are most valuable are, that they shall 
be cheap and easily cleaned. Pottery, as it is now produced, 
possesses both of these qualities in the very highest degree. 
A white basin, having all the useful properties of the most 
costly vessels, may be purchased for a few cents in any vil¬ 
lage in the United States. There are very few substances 
used in human food that have any effect upon these vessels; 
and it only requires rinsing them in hot water, and wiping 
them with a cloth, and they are clean. 

The making of an earthen bowl would be to a man who 
made a first attempt no easy matter. Let us see how it is 
done so that it can be carried to remote districts and sold 
for a few cents, and yet leave a profit to the maker and the 
wholesale and retail dealer. 

The cheapest varieties of pottery, such as flower-pots, etc. v 
are made of common clay, similar to that of which bricks 
are formed, and which, from the iron it contains, usually 
turns red in burning. Next to this is the common crockery 
ware, formed of the purer and whiter clays, in which iron 
only exists in minute quantities. Porcelain, which is the 


264 


POTTERY. 


most expensive and beautiful of all the varieties of pottery, 
is formed only from the purest and most delicate clays, 
united with finely powdered flint; this last melting with 
the clay, when the two are exposed to intense heat, vitrifies 
and gives to the mass a semi-transparent appearance. 

In the manufacture of porcelain, the clay is worked in 
water by various machinery till it contains no single piece 
large enough to be visible to the eye. It is like cream in 
consistence. The flints are burned. They are first ground 
in a mill, and then worked in water in the same manner as 
the clay, the large pieces being returned a second time to 
the mill. 

When both are fine enough, one part of flint is mixed 
with five or six of clay; the whole is worked to a paste; 
after which it is kneaded either by the hands or a machine; 
and when the kneading is completed, it is ready for the 
potter. 

He has a little wheel which lies horizontally. He lays a 
portion of clay on the center of the wheel, puts one hand, or 
finger if the vessel is to be a small one, in the middip, and 
his other hand on the outside, and, as the wheel turns rap¬ 
idly round, draws up a hollow vessel in an instant. With 
his hands, or with very simple tools, he brings it to the 
shape he wishes, cuts it from the wheel with a wire, and a 
boy carries it off. The potter makes vessel after vessel, as 
fast as they can be carried away. 

The potter’s wheel is an instrument of the highest an¬ 
tiquity. In the book of Ecclesiasticus we read—“ So doth 
the potter, sitting at his work, and turning the wheel about 
with his feet, who is always carefully set at his work, and 
maketh all his work by number: he fashioneth the clay 
with his arm, and boweth down his strength before his 
feet; he applieth himself to lead it over, and is diligent to 
make clean the furnace.”—(c. xxxix. v. 29, 30.) At the 


POTTERY. 


265 


present day the oriental potter stands in a pit, in which the 
lower machinery of his wheel is placed. He works as the 
potter of the ancient Hebrews. 



POTTER’S WHEEL OF MODERN EGYPT. 


As the potter produces the vessels they are partially 
dried, after which they are turned on a lathe and smoothed 
with a wet sponge when necessary. Only ronnd vessels 
can be made on the wheel; those of other shapes are made 
12 





















266 


PALISSY AND WEDGEWOOD. 


in molds of plaster. Handles and other solid parts are 
pressed in molds, and stuck on while they and the vessels 
are still wet. 

The vessels thus formed are first dried in a stove, and, 
when dry, burned in a kiln. They are in this state called 
biscuit. If they are finished white, they are glazed by 
another process. If they are figured, the patterns are en¬ 
graved on copper, and printed on coarse paper rubbed with 
soft soap. The ink is made of some color that will stand 
the fire, ground with earthy matter. These patterns are 
moistened and applied to the porous biscuit, which absorbs 
the color, and the paper is washed off, leaving the pattern 
on the biscuit. 

The employment of machinery to do all the heavy part 
of the work, the division of labor, by which each workman 
acquires wonderful dexterity in his department, and the 
conducting of the whole upon a large scale, give bread to a 
vast number of people, make the pottery cheap, and enable 
it to be sold at a profit in almost every market in the world. 
It is not ninety years since the first pottery of a good 
quality was extensively made in England; and. before that 
time what was used in England and the United States was 
imported—the common ware from Delf, in Holland (from 
which it acquired its name), and the porcelain from China. 

The history of the manufacture of porcelain affords us 
two examples of persevering ingenuity—of intense devo¬ 
tion to one object—which have few parallels in what some 
may consider the higher walks of art. Palissy and Wedg¬ 
wood are names that ought to be venerated by every arti¬ 
san. The one bestowed upon France her manufacture of 
porcelain, so long the almost exclusive admiration of the 
wealthy and the tasteful. The other gave to England her 
more extensive production of earthenware, combining with 
great cheapness the imitation of the most beautiful forms 


BUILDING TEADES. 


267 


of ancient art. The potteries of England may be almost 
said to have been created by Josiah Wedgwood. In his 
workshops we may trace the commencement of a system of 
improved design which made his ware so superior to any 
other that had been produced in Europe for common uses. 
In other branches of manufacture this system found few 
imitators; and we were too long contented, in our textile 
fabrics especially, with patterns that were unequaled for 
ugliness—miserable imitations of foreign goods, or combi¬ 
nations of form and color outraging every principle of art. 
We have seen higher things attempted in the present day; 
but for the greater part of a century the porcelain articles 
of England were the only attempts made in that country 
to show that taste was as valuable a quality in association 
with the various articles which are required for domestic 
use, as good materials and clean workmanship. It was long 
before manufacturers and merchants discovered that taste 
had an appreciable commercial value. 

We think that, with regard to buildings and the furni¬ 
ture of buildings, it will be admitted that machinery, in the 
largest sense of the word, has increased the means of every 
man to procure a shelter from the elements, and to give 
him a multitude of conveniences within that shelter. Most 
will agree that a greater number of persons are profitably 
employed in affording this shelter and these conveniences, 
with tools and machines, than if they possessed no such 
mechanical aids to their industry. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


DWELLINGS OF THE PEOPLE.—OBERLIN.—THE HIGHLANDER’S CANDLESTICKS.— 
SUPPLY OF WATER.—LONDON WATER-WORKS.—STREET-LIGHTS.—SEWERS. 


It is satisfactory to observe that the increase of houses 
both in the United States and Great Britain, has kept pace 
with the population. In 1801, in Great Britain, there was 
a population of 10,500,000 persons, and 1,800,000 inhab¬ 
ited houses. In 1851, there were 20,800,000 persons, and 
3,800,000 inhabited houses. The numbers in each case had, 
as nearly as may be, doubled. Analagous facts have also 
been observed in the United States—the population of our 
country being supplied with houses almost in the precise 
ratio as is the population of Great Britain. Thus the total 
population of the United States, by the census of 1850, was 
23,263,000, or 20,059,000 free persons. The number of 
houses occupied at the same time by free persons was 
3,363,427. The ratio of increase during the past fifty 
years, between the population and the number of houses, 
has been somewhat greater in the United States than in 
Great Britain. 

But it is not equally satisfactory to know that the im¬ 
provement in the quality of the houses in Great Britain and 
to some extent in the United States, in which the great 
body of those who labor for wages abide, is not commen¬ 
surate with the increase in their quantity. It is not fitting 
that, while the general progress of science is raising, as un¬ 
questionably it is raising, the average condition of the whole 


DWELLINGS OF THE PEOPLE. 


269 


people—and that while education is going forward, numbers 
of those so progressing should be below their proper stand¬ 
ard of physical comfort, from the too common want of 
decent houses to surround them with the sanctities of 
home.* 

In the great business of the improvement of their dwell¬ 
ings the working men require leaders—not demagogues, 
whose business is to subvert, and not to build up—but 
leaders like the noble pastor, Oberlin, who converted a 
barren district into a fruitful, by the example of his unre : 
mitting energy. This district was cut off from the rest 
of the world by the want of roads. Close at hand was 
Strasburg, full of all the conveniences of social life. There 
was no money to make roads, but there was abundant 
power of labor. There were rocks to be blasted, embank¬ 
ments to be raised, bridges to be built. The undaunted 
clergyman took a pickax, and went to work himself. He 
worked alone till the people were ashamed of seeing him 
so work. They came at last to perceive that the thing was 
to be done, and that it was worth the doing. In three 
years the road was made. If there were an Oberlin to lead 
the inhabitants of every filthy street, and the families of 
every wretched house, to their own proper work of im¬ 
provement, a terrible evil would be soon removed, which 
is as great an impediment to the productive powers of a 

* In reference to the general character of the houses of the American 
people, the compiler of the census of 1850 remarks: “While our country- 
can not boast the princely residences of European countries, the occu¬ 
pancy of which is limited to comparatively few persons, we think there is 
a general sufficiency and comfort in the house accommodations of the 
American people; and that, in the most remote regions of our country, 
where their accommodations are most limited, they exhibit a very satis¬ 
factory degree of comfort and cleanliness. The fact is notorious that 
where wretchedness is at all general, there will be found a population 
which formed habits and imbibed tastes in a foreign land. 


270 


THE HIGHLANDER’S CANDLESTICKS. 


country, and, therefore, to the hajipiness of its people, as 
the want of ready communication, or any other appliance 
of civilization. The enormity of the evil would be appall¬ 
ing, if the capability of its removal in some degree were not 
equally certain. 

Whatever a government may attempt—whatever munici¬ 
palities or benevolent associations—there can be nothing so 
effectual in the upholding to a proper mark the domestic 
comfort of the working men of this country, as their firm 
resolve to uphold themselves. 

Still, unhappily, it is an undoubted fact that many indus¬ 
trious men in large cities are too often unable to procure 
a fit dwelling, however able to pay for it and desirous to 
procure it. The houses have been built with no reference 
to such increasing wants. The idle and the diligent, the 
profligate and the prudent, the criminal and the honest, the 
diseased and the healthful, are therefore thrust into close 
neighborhood. There is no escape. Is this terrible evil 
incapable of remedy ? To discover that remedy, and apply 
it, is truly a national concern; for assuredly there is no cap¬ 
ital of a country so worth preserving in the highest state 
of efficiency as the capital it possesses in an industrious pop¬ 
ulation. There is a noble moral in a passage of Scott’s ro¬ 
mance—“ The Legend of Montrose.” A Highland chief had 
betted with a more luxurious English baronet whom he had 
visited that he had better candlesticks at home that the six 
silver ones which the richer man had put upon his dinner- 
table. The Englishman went to the chief’s castle in the 
hills, where the owner was miserable about the issue of his 
bragging bet. But his brother had a device which saved 
the honor of the clan. The attendant announced that the 
dinner was ready, and the candles lighted. Behind each 
chair for the guests stood a gigantic Highlander with his 
drawn sword in his right hand, and a blazing torch in his 


MACHINES FOR RAISING WATER. 271 

left, made of the bog-pine; and the brother exclaimed to 
the startled company—“Would you dare to compare to 
them in value the richest ore that ever was dug out of the 
mine ?” 

We may naturally pass from these considerations to a 
most important branch of the great subject of the expendi¬ 
ture of capital for public objects. 

The people who live in small villages, or in scattered hab¬ 
itations in the country, have certainly not so many direct 
benefits from machinery as the inhabitants of towns. They 
have the articles at a cheap rate which the machines pro¬ 
duce, but there are not so many machines at work for them 
as for dense populations. From want of knowledge they 
may be unable to perceive the connection between a cheap 
coat, or a cheap tool, and the machines which make them 
plentiful and, therefore, cheap. But even they, when the 
saving of labor by a machine is a saving which immediately 
affects them, are not slow to acknowledge the benefits they 
derive from that best of economy. The Scriptures allude 
to the painful condition of the “ hewers of wood” and the 
“drawers of water;” and certainly, in a state of society 
where there are no machines at all, or very rude machines, 
to cut down a tree and cleave it into logs, and to raise a 
bucket from a well, are very laborious occupations, the ex¬ 
istence of which, to any extent, among a people, would 
mark them as remaining in a wretched condition. Imme¬ 
diately that the people have the simplest mechanical contri¬ 
vance, such as the loaded lever, to raise water from a well, 
which is found represented in Egyptian sculpture, and also 
in our Anglo-Saxon drawings, they are advancing to the 
condition of raising water by machinery. The Oriental 
shadoof is a machine. In our own country, at the present 
day, there are not many houses, in situations where water 
is at hand, that have not the wdndlass, or what is better, the 


272 


MACHINES FOR RAISING WATER. 


pump, to raise this great necessary of life from the well. 
Some laborers, however, have no such machines, and bit¬ 



terly do they lament the want of them. We once met an 
old woman in a country district tottering under the weight 
of a bucket, which she was laboring to carry up a hill. We 
















WATEK-SUPPLY. 


273 


asked her how she and her family were off in the world. 
She replied that she could do pretty well with them, for 
they could all work, if it were not for one thing—it was one 
person’s labor to fetch water from the spring; but, said 
she, if we had a pump handy, we should not have much to 
complain of. This old woman very wisely had no love of 
labor for its own sake; she saw no advantage in the labor 
of one of her family being given for the attainment of a 
good which she knew might be attained by a very common 
invention. She wanted a machine to save that labor. Such 
a machine would have set at liberty a certain quantity of 
labor which was previously employed unprofitably ; in other 
words, it would have left her or her children more time for 
more profitable work, and then the family earnings would 
have been increased. 

But there is another point of view in which this machine 
would have benefited the good woman and her family. 
Water is not only necessary to drink and to prepare food 
with, but it is necessary for cleanlinesss, and cleanliness is 
necessary for health. If there is a scarcity of water, or 
if it requires a great deal of labor to obtain it (which comes 
to the same thing as a scarcity), the uses of water for clean¬ 
liness will be wholly or in part neglected. If the neglect 
becomes a habit, which it is sure to do, disease, and that of 
the worst sort, can not be prevented. 

When men gather together in large bodies, and inhabit 
towns or cities, a plentiful supply of water is the first thing 
to which they direct their attention. If towns are built in 
situations where pure water can not be readily obtained, 
the inhabitants, and especially the poorer sort, suffer even 
more misery than results from the want of bread or clothes. 
In some cities of Spain, for instance, where the people 
understand very little about machinery, water, at particu¬ 
lar periods of the year, is as dear as wine; and the la- 

12 * 


274 


WATEK-SUPPLY. 


boring classes are consequently in a most miserable con¬ 
dition. In London, on the contrary, as it appears from a 
return of the various water companies, the daily average 
of water-supply is sixty-two million gallons, being an aver¬ 
age of about two hundred and two gallons to each house 
and other buildings, which amount to three hundred and 
ten thousand. This seems an enormous supply, but in pro¬ 
portion to the population it is much less than the daily 
quantity of water supplied to the cities of New York, Bos¬ 
ton, or Philadelphia. London with a population in 1850 
of two million three hundred and sixty-thousand, has a daily 
water-supply of sixty-two million gallons, while New York 
with a population about five hundred thousand, receives 
daily from the Croton water-works sixty million gallons. 
Even this quantity, so much greater than that supplied to 
the population of London, is not deemed sufficient for the 
wants of New York, and there are reasons for thinking that 
the quantity ought to be increased, and the arrangements 
made so perfect, that there should be a perpetual stream of 
water through the pipes of each house, like that through 
the arteries from the heart. These arrangements are won¬ 
drous when compared with the water-supply of other times; 
and it is satisfactory to know that there are very few of 
our large towns which are not supplied as well as, and 
many much better than, London. The cost of the water- 
supply to the inhabitants of our large cities, the quantity 
consumed being taken into consderation, is also exceedingly 
cheap. In Boston the supply for every dwelling-house occu¬ 
pied by one family is rated at five dollars per annum; for 
manufacturing establishments using two hundred ^gallons 
or less per day, six cents per hundred gallons; and for 
establishments using from two thousand to ten thousand 
gallons per day, three cents per hundred gallons. In some 
places the cost of water is even much less than this, but 


WATER-SUPPLY. 


275 


for the large cities the tariff of prices is generally about 
the same. In London and in most large cities, great diffi¬ 
culties have been experienced in supplying water, on ac¬ 
count of the unexampled increase in the population. 

The sanitary arrangements of our great towns—the 
supply of water, the drainage—have followed the growth 
of the population and not preceded it. As the necessity 
has arisen for such a ministration to the absolute wants of 
a community, it has inevitably become a system of expe¬ 
dients. We are wiser now when we build upon new 
ground. We first construct our lines of street, with sewers, 
and water-pipes, and gas-pipes, and then we build our 
houses. What a different affair is it to manage these 
matters effectually when the houses have been previously 
built with very slight reference to such conditions of 
social existence! 

As long ago as the year 1236, when a great want of 
water was felt in London, the little springs being blocked 
up and covered over by buildings, the ruling men of the 
city caused water to be brought from Tyburn, which was 
then a distant village, by means of pipes; and they laid a 
tax upon particular branches of trade to pay the expense 
of this great blessing to all. In succeeding times more 
pipes and conduits, that is, more machinery, were estab¬ 
lished for the same good purpose; and two centuries after¬ 
ward, King Henry the Sixth gave his aid to the same sort 
of works, in granting particular advantages in obtaining 
lead for making pipes. The reason for this aid to such 
works was, as the royal decree set forth, that they were 
“ for the common utility and decency of all the city, and 
for the universal advantage ,” and a very true reason this 
was. As this London more and more increased, more 
water-works were found necessary ; till at last, in the reign 
of James the First, which was nearly two hundred years 


276 


WATER-SUPPLY. 


after that of Henry the Sixth, a most ingenious and enter¬ 
prising man, Hugh Myddleton, undertook to bring a river 
of pure water above thirty-eight miles out of its natural 
course, for the supply of London. He persevered in this 
immense undertaking, in spite of every difficulty, till he at 
last accomplished that great good which he had proposed, 
of bringing wholesome water to every man’s door. At the 
present time, the Hew River, which was the work of Hugh 
Myddleton, supplies London with more than seventeen 
millions of gallons of water every day; and though the 
original projector was ruined by the undertaking, in con¬ 
sequence of the difficulty which he had in procuring proper 
support, such is now the general conviction of the advan¬ 
tage which he procured for his fellow-citizens, and so de¬ 
sirous are the people to possess that advantage, that a share 
in the Hew River Company, which was at first sold at one 
hundred pounds, is now worth three thousand pounds. 

Before the people of London had water brought to their 
own doors, and even into their very houses, and into every 
room of their houses where it is desirable to bring it, they 
were obliged to send for this great article of life—first, 
to the few springs which were found in the city and its 
neighborhood, and, secondly, to the conduits and fount¬ 
ains, which were imperfect mechanical contrivances for 
bringing it. 

When the inhabitants carried their water from the 
springs and conduits there was a great deal of human labor 
employed; and as in every large community there are 
always people ready to perform labor for money, many 
persons obtained a living by carrying water about in Lon¬ 
don for sale, as they do to this day in many of the Eastern 
cities. When the Hew River had been dug, and the pipes 
had been laid down, it is perfectly clear that there would 
have been no further need for these water-carriers. When 


WATER-CARRIERS OF TURKEY. 




































































278 


WATEK-SUPPLY. 


the people of London could obtain two hundred gallons of 
water for two cents, they would not employ a man to fetch 
a single bucket from the river or fountain at the same price. 
They would not, for the mere love of employing human 
labor directly, continue to buy an article very dear, which, 
by mechanical aid, they could buy very cheap. If they had 
resolved, from any mistaken notions about machinery, to 
continue to employ the water-carriers, they must have been 
contented with one gallon of water a day instead of two 
hundred gallons. Or if they had consumed a larger quan¬ 
tity, and continued to pay the price of bringing it to them 
by hand, they must have denied themselves other neces¬ 
saries and comforts. They must have gone without a cer¬ 
tain portion of food, or clothing, or fuel, which they are 
now enabled to obtain by the saving in the article of water. 
To have had for each house two hundred gallons of water, 
and, in having this two hundred gallons of water, to have 
had the cleanliness and health which result from its use, 
would have been utterly impossible. The supply of one 
gallon, instead of two hundred gallons to each house, would 
at present amount to 310,000 gallons daily, which, at one 
cent per gallon, would cost $3,100 per day; or $21,700 
per week: or more than $1,000,000 per annum. On 
the assumption that one man, without any mechanical 
arrangements besides his can, could carry twenty gallons 
a day, thus earning in seven days one dollar and forty 
cents, this would employ no fewer than 15,000 persons—■ 
a very army of water-carriers. To supply ten gallons a 
day to each house would cost more than $11,000,000 per 
annum, and would employ more than 150,000 persons. 
To supply two hundred gallons a day would require 
3,614,800 persons—a number exceeding the total popula¬ 
tion of London. The whole number of persons engaged in 
the water-works’ service of all Great Britain is under 1000. 


WATER-SUPPLY. 


279 


There is now, certainly, no labor to be performed by 
water-carriers. But suppose that five hundred years ago, 
when there were a small number of persons who gained 
their living by such drudgery, they had determined to pre¬ 
vent the bringing of water by pipes into London. Suppose 
also that they had succeeded; and that up to the present day 
we had no pipes or other mechanical aids for supplying the 
water. It is quite evident that if this misfortune had hap¬ 
pened—if the welfare of the many had been retarded (for it 
never could have been finally stopped) by the ignorance of 
the few—London, as we have already shown, would not 
have had a twentieth part of its present population; and the 
population of every other town, depending as population 
does upon the increase of profitable labor, could never have 
gone forward. How then would the case have stood as to 
the amount of labor engaged in the supply of water ? A 
few hundred, at the utmost a few thousand, carriers of 
water would have been employed while the smelters and 
founders of iron of which water-pipes are made, the laborers 
who lay down these pipes, the founders of lead who make 
the service-pipes, and the plumbers who apply them; the 
carriers, whether by water or land, who are engaged in 
bringing them to the towns—these, and many other labor¬ 
ers and mechanics who directly and indirectly contribute to 
the same public advantage, could never have been called 
into employment. To have continued to use the power of 
the water-carriers would have rendered the commodity two 
hundred times dearer than it is supplied by mechanical 
power. The present cheapness of production, by mechan¬ 
ical power, supplies employment to an infinitely greater 
number of persons than could have been required by a per¬ 
severance in the rude and wasteful system which belonged 
to former ages of ignorance and wretchedness. 

When society is more perfectly organized than it is at 


280 


STREET-LIGHTS. 


present, and when the great body of the people understand 
the value of co-operation for procuring advantages that in¬ 
dividuals can not attain, public baths will be established in 
every town, and in every district of a town. The great 
Roman people had public baths for all ranks. The great 
American people have only thought within these few years 
that a few public baths were a necessity. The establish¬ 
ment of public wash-houses, in connection with baths, hav¬ 
ing every advantage of machinery and economical arrange¬ 
ments, are real blessings to the few who now use them. 

It is little more than thirty years since London was 
lighted with gas. One of the principal streets was thus 
lighted in 1807, by a chartered company, to whose claims 
for support the majority of householders were utterly op¬ 
posed. They had their old oil-lamps, which were thought 
absolute perfection. The main pipes which convey gas to 
the London houses are now fifteen hundred miles hi length. 
The noblest prospect in the world is a large city lighted 
with gas, seen from an elevation on a bright winter’s even¬ 
ing. The stars are shining in heaven, but there are thou¬ 
sands of earthly stars glittering in the city there spread her 
fore us; and as we look into any small space of that won¬ 
drous illumination, we can trace long lines of light losing 
themselves in the general splendor of the distance, and we 
can see dim shapes of mighty buildings afar ofi*, showing 
their dark masses amid the glowing atmosphere that hangs 
over the city for miles, with the edges of flickering clouds 
gilded as if they were touched by the first sunlight. This 
is a spectacle that men look not upon,.because it is com¬ 
mon ; and so we walk amid the nightly splendors of the 
streets, and forget what it was in the middle of the last 
century—the days of “darkness visible,” under the com¬ 
bined efforts of the twinkling lamp, the watchman’s lantern, 
and the vagabond’s link. 


SEWERS. 


281 


The last, but in many respects one of the most useful of 
public works to which a large amount of capital has been 
devoted, is the construction of sewers in our cities and 
towns. Popular intelligence and official power have been 
very slowly awakened to the performance of this duty. 
And yet the consequences of neglect have been felt for cen¬ 
turies. In 1290 the monks of White Friars and of Black 
Friars in London, complained to the king that the exhala¬ 
tions from the Fleet River overcame the pleasant odor of 
the frankincense which burned on their altars, and occas¬ 
ioned the deaths of the brethren. This was the polluted 
stream that in time came to be known as Fleet Ditch, 
which Pope described as 

“ The king of dykes, than whom no sluice of mud 
With deeper sable blots the silver flood.” 

Fleet Ditch became such a nuisance that it was partly filled 
up by act of parliament soon after these lines were written. 
The Londoners had then their reservoirs of filth, called 
laystalls, in various parts near the river; and the pestilent 
accumulations spread disease all over the city. The system 
of sewers was begun in 1756, and from that time to the 
present several hundreds of miles of sewers have been con¬ 
structed in London. At the present time every large town 
or city properly organized, has its system of sewerage. 
Public opinion in this matter, has gone so strongly in the 
direction of a thorough reformation, that these arrange¬ 
ments, so essential to health and cleanliness, can no longer 
be neglected. Experience has taught us by bitter and ex¬ 
pensive lessons that every dollar of public capital so ex¬ 
pended is a certain addition to the total amount of national 
wealth. Apart, however, from mere temporal or pecuniary 
consideration, every thing connected with those depart¬ 
ments of sanitary reform which have for their object the 


282 


SEWERS. 


removal of filth, or impurity, or the abatement of nuisances, 
has special claims upon our attention, and should be re¬ 
garded as duties which we have no right to ignore, or 
neglect, since as John Wesley remarked, “cleanliness is 
second only to godliness.” “When the missionary Van 
der Kemp, was setting out for Africa, passing one of the 
brick-yards of London, he thought it would be such a boon 
to the Hottentots if he could improve their dwellings, that 
he offered himself as a servant to the brick-maker, and 
spent some weeks in learning the business. And he was 
right. It is not easy to live godly and righteously amid 
filth and darkness; and although the Gospel will not refuse 
to enter a Hottentot hut, or an Irish cabin, when once it is 
admitted, its tendency is to improve that cabin, or hut into 
a cottage with tiles on the floor, and glass in the windows.” 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


EARLY INTERCOURSE 'WITH FOREIGN NATIONS.—PROGRESS OF THE COTTON MANUFAC¬ 
TURE.—HAND-SPINNING.—ARKWRIGHT.—CROMPTON, WHITNEY AND THE COTTON- 
GIN.—PROGRESS OF THE COTTON MANUFACTURE IN AMERICA.—ESPECIAL BENEFITS 
OF MACHINERY IN THIS MANUFACTURE. 


There was a time when the people of England were very 
inferior to those of the Low Countries, of France, and of 
Germany, in various productions of manufacturing industry. 
What first gave an impulse to the woolen trade, which for 
several centuries was the great staple of England, was the 
procuring foreign workmen to teach the English people 
their craft. Before that period the nations on the Conti¬ 
nent had a proverb against the English. They said, “ the 
stranger buys of the Englishman the skin of the fox for a 
groat, and sells him the tail for a shilling.” The proverb 
meant that the people of England had not skill to convert 
the raw material into an article of use, and that they paid 
a large price for the labor and ingenuity which made their 
native material available to themselves. 

But still the intercourse, such as it was then, with “ the 
stranger” was better than no intercourse. They gave the 
rough and stinking fox’s skin for a groat, and received the 
nicely dressed tippet for a shilling. The next best thing to 
dressing the skin themselves was to pay other people for 
dressing it. Without foreign communication the English 
could not have got that article of clothing at all. 


284 


COTTON MANUFACTURE. 


All nations that have made any considerable advance in 
civilization have been commercial nations. The arts of life 
are very imperfectly understood in countries which have 
little communication with the rest of the world, and conse¬ 
quently the inhabitants are poor and wretched; their condi¬ 
tion is not bettered by the exchange with other countries, 
either of goods or of knowledge. They have the fox’s skin, 
but they do not know how to convert it into value, 
by being furriers themselves, or by communication with 
“ stranger” furriers. 

The people of the East, among whom a certain degree of 
civilization has existed from high antiquity, were not only 
the growers of many productions which were unsuited to 
the climate and soil of Europe, but they were the manufac¬ 
turers also. Cotton, for instance was cultivated from time 



MICROSCOPIC APPEARANCE OP THE COTTON FIBER. 


immemorial in Hindoostan, in China, in Persia, and in Egypt. 
Cotton was a material easily grown and collected; and the 
patient industry of the people by whom it was cultivated, 
their simple habits, and their few wants, enabled them to 
send into Europe their manufactured stuffs of a fine and dura- 




COTTON MANUFACTURE. 


285 


ble quality, under every disadvantage of land-carriage, even 
from the time of the ancient Greeks. Before the discovery, 
however, of the passage of India by the Cape of Good 
Hope, cotton goods in Europe were articles of great price 
and luxury. M. Say well observes that, although cotton 
stuffs were cheaper than silk (which was formerly sold for 
its weight in gold), they were still articles which could only 
be purchased by the most opulent; and that, if a Grecian 
lady could awake from her sleep of two thousand years, her 
astonishment would be unbounded to see a simple country 
girl clothed with a gown of printed cotton, a muslin ker¬ 
chief, and a colored shawl. 

When India was open to the ships of Europe, the Portu¬ 
guese, the Dutch, and the English sold cotton goods in 
every market, in considerable quantities. These stuffs bore 
their Indian names of calicoes and muslins; and, whether 
bleached or dyed, were equally valued as among the most 
useful and ornamental articles of European dress. 

In the seventeenth century France began to manufacture 
into stuffs the raw cotton imported from India, as Italy had 
done a century before. A cruel act of despotism drove the 
best French workmen, who were Protestants, into England, 
and Englishmen learned the manufacture. The same act of 
despotism, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, caused the 
settlement of silk manufacturers in England. The English 
did not make any considerable progress in the art, nor did 
they use the material of cotton exclusively in making up the 
goods. The warp, or longitudinal threads of the cloth, were 
of flax, the weft only was of cotton; for they could not twist 
it hard enough by hand to serve both purposes. The ac¬ 
companying figures are enlarged representations of a piece 
of cotton cloth, showing the position and distinctions of the 
warp and weft; the longitudinal lines (represented in the 
lower figure by dots) constituting the warp, and the lines at 


286 


COTTON MANUFACTURE. 


right angles, or running across the figure, the weft. This 
weft was spun entirely by hand with a distaff and spindle— 




the same process in which the women of England had been 
engaged for centuries—and which we see represented in 
ancient drawings. The manufacture, in spite of all these dis¬ 
advantages, continued to increase; so that about 1760, al¬ 
though there were fifty thousand spindles at work in the 
county of Lancashire alone, the weaver found the greatest 
difficulty in procuring a sufficient supply of thread. Neither 
weaving nor spinning was then carried on in large factories. 
They were domestic occupations. The women of a family 
worked at the distaff or the hand-wheel, and there were two 
operations necessary in this department; roving, or coarse 
spinning, reduced the carded cotton to the thickness of a 
quill, and the spinner afterward drew out and twisted the 
roving into weft fine enough for the weaver. The spinsters 
of England were carrying on the same operation as the spin 
sters of India. In the middle of the last century, according 
to Mr. Guest, a writer on the cotton manufacture, very few 
English weavers could procure weft enough to keep them¬ 
selves constantly employed. “ It was no uncommon thing,” 
he says, “ for a weaver to walk three or four miles in a 
morning, and call on five or six spinners, before he could 
collect weft to serve him for the remainder of the day; and 
when he wished to weave a piece in a shorter time than 


COTTON MANUFACTURE. 


287 


usual, a new ribbon or gown was necessary to quicken the 
exertions of the spinner.’ 5 



DISTAFF. 


That the manufacture should have flourished in England 
at all under these difficulties is honorable to the industry 
of that country; for the machinery used in weaving was 
also of the rudest sort, so that, if the web was more than 
three feet wide, the labor of two men was necessary to 
throw the shuttle. English cotton goods, of course, were 
very dear, and there was little variety in them. The cloth 
made of flax and cotton was called fustian; for which article 
Manchester was famous, as well as for laces. England, how¬ 
ever, still received the calicoes and printed cottons from 
India. 

In a country where men have learned to think, and where 
ingenuity therefore is at work, a deficiency in material or 





288 


COTTON MANUFACTURE. 


in labor to hieet the demand of a market is sure to call forth 
invention. It is a century ago since it was perceived that 
spinning by machinery might give the supply which human 
labor was inadequate to produce, because, doubtless, the 
remuneration for that labor was very small. The work of 
the distaff, as it was carried on at that period, in districts 
partly agricultural and partly commercial, was, generally, 
an employment for the spare hours of the young women, 
and the easy industry of the old. It was a labor that was 
to assist in maintaining the family; not a complete means 
for their maintenance. The supply of yarn was, therefore, 
insufficient, and ingenious men applied themselves to remedy 
that insufficiency. Spinning-mills were built in England in 
1733, in which, it is said, although we have no precise ac¬ 
count of it, that an apparatus for spinning was erected. A 
Mr. Lawrence Earnshaw is recorded to have invented a 
machine in 1753, to spin and reel cotton at one operation; 
which he showed to his neighbors and then destroyed it, 
through the generous apprehension that he might deprive 
the poor of bread. We must admire the motive of this 
good man, although we are now enabled to show that his 
judgment was mistaken. Richard Arkwright, a barber of 
England, invented in 1769, the principal part of the ma¬ 
chinery for spinning cotton, and by so doing he gave bread 
to millions of people instead of a few thousands, and, as¬ 
sisted by subsequent inventions, raised the importation of 
cotton into England from less than two million pounds per 
annum to a thousand million pounds ; enabling Great Brit¬ 
ain to supply other nations with cotton manufactures to the 
enormous amount of thirty-three million pounds sterling in 
one year, 1853. 

And how did Arkwright effect this great revolution ? 
He asked himself whether it was not possible, instead of a 
wheel which spins a single thread of cotton at a time, and 


COTTON MANUFACTURE. 


289 


by means of which the spinner could obtain in twenty-four 
hours about two ounces of thread—whether it might not 
be possible to spin the same material upon a great number 
of wheels, from which many hundreds of threads might 
issue at the same moment. The difficulty was in giving to 
these numerous wheels, spinning so many threads, the pecu¬ 
liar action of two hands wdien they pinch, at a little distance 
from each other, a lock of cotton, rendering it finer as it is 
drawn out. It was necessary, also, at the same time, to 
imitate the action of the spindle, which twisted together 
the filaments at the moment they had attained the necessary 
degree of fineness. It would be extremely difficult, if not 
impossible, to give an adequate idea, by words, of the com¬ 
plex machinery by which Arkwright accomplished his ob¬ 
ject. He is said to have received the first idea of the con¬ 
struction of his machine from seeing a red-hot bar of iron 
elongated by being passed between heavy rollers. Since 
Arkwright’s time prodigious improvements have been made 
in the machinery for cotton-spinning; but the principle re¬ 
mains the same, namely, to enable rollers to do the work of 
human fingers, with much greater precision, and incompara¬ 
bly cheaper. We will attempt briefly to describe this chief 
portion of the great invention. 

We must suppose that, by th£ previous operation of 
carding, the cotton-fiber has been so combed and prepared 
as to be formed into a long untwisted line of about the 
thickness of a man’s finger. This line so formed (after it 
has been introduced into the spinning-machine) is called a 
roving , the old name in hand-spinning. 

In order to convert this roving into a thread, it is neces¬ 
sary that the fibers, which are for the most part curled up, 
and which lie in all directions, should be stretched out and 
laid lengthwise, side by side ; that they should be pressed 
together so as to give them a more compact form; and that 

13 


290 


COTTON MANUFACTURE. 


they should be twisted, so as to unite them all firmly to¬ 
gether. In the original method of spinning by the distaff, 
those operations were performed by the finger and thumb, 
and they were afterward effected with greater rapidity, but 
less perfectly, by means of the long wheel and spindle. For 
the same purpose Arkwright employed two pairs of small 
rollers, the one pair being placed at a little distance in front 
of the other. The lower roller in each pair is furrowed or 
fluted lengthwise, and the upper one is covered with leather; 
so that, as they revolve in contact with each other, they 
take fast hold of the cotton which passes between them. 
Both pairs of rollers are turned by machinery, which is so 
contrived that the second pair shall turn round with much 
more swiftness than the first. Now suppose that a roving 
is put between the first pair of rollers. The immediate 
effect is merely to press it together into a more compact 
form. But the roving has but just passed through the first 
pair of rollers, when it is received between the second pair; 
and as the rollers of the second pair revolve with greater 
velocity than those of the first, they draw the roving for¬ 
ward with greater rapidity than it is given out by the first 
pair. Consequently, the roving will be lengthened in pass¬ 
ing from one pair to the other ; and the fibers of which it is 
composed will be drawn out and laid lengthwise side by 
side. The increase of length will be exactly in proportion 
to the increased velocity of the second pair of rollers. 

Two or more rovings are generally united in this opera¬ 
tion. Thus, suppose that two rovings are introduced to¬ 
gether between the first pair of rollers, and that the second 
pair of rollers move with twice the velocity of the first. 
The new roving thus formed by the union of the two will 
then be of exactly twice the length of either of the original 
ones. It will, therefore, contain exactly the same quantity 
of cotton per yard. But its parts will be very differently 


COTTON MANUFACTURE. 


291 


arranged, and its fibers will be drawn out longitudinally, 
and will be thus much better fitted for forming a thread. 
This operation of doubling and drawing is repeated as often 
as is found necessary, and the requisite degree of twist is 
given by a machine similar to the spindle and fly of the 
common flax-wheel. 

The spinning-mule, invented by Samuel Crompton, carried 
the mechanism of the cotton-factory many steps in advance. 
Long after Crompton came the self-acting mule. It is a 
carriage some twenty or thirty feet long, traveling to and 
fro, and drawing out the most delicate threads through 
hundreds of spindles, whirling at a rate which scarcely ther¬ 
mits the eye to trace their motion. “ So great are the im¬ 
provements effected in spinning machinery, that one man 
can attend to a mule containing 1088 spindles, each spinning 
three hanks, or 3264 hanks in the aggregate, per day. In 
Hindoostan, where they spin by* hand, it would be extrava¬ 
gant to expect a spinner to accomplish one hank per day; 
so that in the United States we find the same amount of 
manual labor, by improved machinery, doing more than 
3000 times the work.” 

Of the rapidity with which some portions of the machin¬ 
ery employed in the manufacture of cotton operate, we may 
form an idea from the fact that the very finest thread which 
is used in making lace is passed through the strong flame 
of a lamp, which burns off the fibers without burning the 
thread itself. The velocity with which the thread moves is 
so great that we can not perceive any motion at all. The 
line of thread, passing off a wheel through the flame, looks 
as if it were perfectly at rest; and it appears a miracle that 
it is not burned. 

The successive inventions of Hargreaves, Arkwright, 
Crompton, and others, would, however, have availed but 
little unless a sufficiency of the raw material could have 


292 


COTTON MANUFACTURE. 


been cheaply obtained. The very first process in the man¬ 
ufacture of cotton—that of cleaning the fiber from the 
seeds—remained for a period of more than twenty years 
after the inventions of Arkwright, rude, expensive, and un¬ 
improved. The fiber of cotton adheres with considerable 
tenacity to the seeds; and previous to the year 1793 the 
separation of the two was effected entirely by hand—the 
labor of one person for a whole day being only sufficient for 
cleaning a few pounds of fiber. In 1793, however, Eli 



INTERIOR OF A COTTON-MILL. 


Whitney, an American, invented the cotton-gin, which at 
once gave a new character and impulse to the growth as 
well as the manufacture of cotton. There are two machines 
for effecting this object—one called the roller-gin , appli¬ 
cable mainly to the better qualities of cotton in which 
the fiber does not adhere to the seed with any great tena¬ 
city, and the other the saw-gin, which is used for all the 
cheaper kinds of cotton. By the first, the cotton is simply 
drawn between two rollers, revolving so nearly in contact 






COTTON MANUFACTURE. 


293 


that the size of the seed prevents it from following the fiber. 
The saw-gin is a receiver, having one side covered with 
strong parallel wires, about one eighth of an inch apart, be¬ 
tween which pass a number of circular saws, revolving on a 
common axis. The cotton is entangled in the teeth of the 
saws, and is drawn through the grating, while the seeds are 
prevented by their size from passing. The cotton thus sep¬ 
arated is swept from the saws by a revolving brush, and the 
seeds fall out at the bottom of the receiver. 

This invention of Whitney was the final step by which 
the w T hole process of manufacturing cotton into cloth was 
effected by machinery (the power-loom having been in¬ 
vented some years before). At about the same time, steam 
was introduced to the world as an agent of limitless power, 
in driving machinery of every kind; new channels of in¬ 
ternal communication were opened between the different 
parts of the world; chemistry furnished the means for 
rapidly bleaching the fabrics produced from cotton; and 
all the resources of science and skill, of invention and in¬ 
dustry, seemed combined to create an immensely increased 
demand for the raw' material, upon which all these labors 
were to be expended. Cotton then began to be more 
extensively cultivated in the United States. The plant 
was indigenous upon this continent. According to the 
testimony of Columbus, the dresses of our Indians were 
made of cotton. It was found also by the Spaniards in 
Mexico, and cotton mantles and other articles were sent 
by Cortes to Charles Y. of Spain. The Mexicans were 
almost wholly dependent upon it for all their fabrics of 
common use, but the art of manufacturing it had wholly 
perished from the later races. The cultivation of the cotton- 
plant in this country began about the year 1660, but so 
little progress, however, had been made in its culture, that 
previous to 1780, not a single pound had been exported. 


294 


COTTON MANUFACTURE. 


In 1784, the first parcel of American cotton, 3000 pounds, 
was exported to England. In 1791, 19,200 pounds were 
exported. The next year the quantity rose to 138,328 
pounds. In 1793, Whitney’s cotton-gin came into opera¬ 
tion, and its immediate effect may be inferred from the 
fact, that the very next year, in 1794, the United States 
exported 1,601,760 pounds, and in 1795, 5,276,306. Pre¬ 
vious to the invention of the cotton-gin by Whitney, the 
importation of cotton into Great. Britain did not greatly 
exceed five millions of pounds per annum, and the value of 
cotton goods exported was only two hundred thousand 
pounds sterling. Since then, the amount has steadily in¬ 
creased, and in 1852 Great Britain consumed not far from 
800,000,000 pounds of raw American cotton, and exported 
£31,000,000 of manufactured cotton goods. 

In 1749, some good people in or near Boston organized 
a society for the “ promotion of industry and economy,” 
the wars preceding that period having introduced a habit 
of idleness among the people, which the strong religious 
sentiment of the early settlers determined to discourage 
and rebuke. On the occasion of their anniversary in 1753, 
three hundred females of Boston assembled on the Com¬ 
mon, with their spinning-wheels and gave a demonstration 
of their skill in the art of using them. They were neatly 
attired in cloth of their own manufacture, and a great crowd 
of spectators collected to witness the scene. This was the 
first public exhibition of American manufactures, and prob¬ 
ably produced as much good and more excitement than 
those of later days. 

In 1787, the first cotton-mill in Massachusetts was erected 
at Beverly, by John Cabot and others; but such were their 
difficulties, that in three years they were almost compelled 
to abandon the enterprise. As a last resort, they petitioned 
the legislature for assistance, and the committee to whom 


COTTON MANUFACTURE. 


295 


the subject was referred reported in favor of granting them 
one thousand pounds sterling, to be raised by a lottery ! 

In 1786, two Scotch brothers, named Robert and Alex¬ 
ander Barr, erected carding and spinning machines for Mr. 
Orr, at East Bridgewater, Mass., which was considered of 
such importance that the legislature, to reward their in¬ 
genuity and encourage machinists, “ made them a grant of 
£200, and afterward added to their bounty by giving them 
six tickets in the State Land Lottery, in which there were 
no blanks!” 

In 1805, the total consumption of cotton in all the United 
States was a little more than one thousand bales ! Now, the 
cotton consumed by the mills of Lowell exceeds two million 
eight hundred and twenty thousand pounds per month. 

In 1810, Tench Coxe, of Philadelphia, in accordance with 
instructions from Albert Gallatin, collected all the informa¬ 
tion he could, touching the condition of American manufac¬ 
tures at that period. The result of his labors was published 
in 1812 ; and according to his report, during the year 1810, 
Massachusetts manufactured thirty-six thousand yards of 
cotton cloth, and two hundred pieces of duck, the first 
valued at $28,000, and the second at $6,000, which was the 
extent of her factory operations. In all the States com¬ 
bined, there were only one hundred and forty-six thousand, 
nine hundred and seventy-four yards of cotton cloth manu¬ 
factured during that year. Now, a single establishment 
at Lowell produces something more than Jive hundred and 
thirty-six thousand yards per week, or twenty-five millions, 
seven hundred and twenty-eight thousand per year. In his 
ardor to promote domestic manufactures, Mr. Coxe urged 
families to make their own cloth, and recommended the cir¬ 
culation of official tracts or pamphlets, describing the best 
machinery for family use; and, by way of inciting the South 
to increased action, advised them to manufacture, for the 


296 


COTTON MANUFACTURE. 


use of their slaves, “ a cap of thick home-made, undyed 
cotton swan-skin, similar in form to the Highland woolen 
cap of North Britain.” He thought such a cap would 
preserve the health of the slaves, and therefore financially 
benefit their masters. 

The war of 1812 gave a fresh impetus to American manu¬ 
factures, insomuch that in 1816 a report to Congress showed 
that forty millions of dollars were then invested in cotton 
manufactures, and twelve millions in woolen; and that 
during the year, ninety thousand bales of cotton had been 
consumed by our factories, and that the aggregate value 
of all the goods manufactured was equal to about sixty 
millions of dollars. In 1850, according to the late census 
report, there were in all the States one thousand and 
ninety-four establishments for the manufacture of cotton, 
employing a capital of $74,501,031, and producing goods 
annually to the value of $61,859,184. In 1855, the esti¬ 
mated amount of cotton grown in the United States, was 
not less than three million, two hundred thousand bales, or 
allowing four hundred pounds to the bale, one billion two 
hundred and eighty millions of pounds . 

The inventions of Arkwright, Whitney, and others, 
changed the commerce and industry of the world. The 
machinery by which a man, or woman, or even child, could 
produce two hundred threads where one was produced be¬ 
fore, caused a cheapness of production much greater than 
that of India, where human labor is scarcely worth any 
thing. But the fabric of cotton was also infinitely improved 
by the machinery. The hand of the spinner was unequal to 
its operations. It sometimes jwoduced a fine thread, and 
sometimes a coarse one; and therefore the quality of the 
cloth could not be relied upon. The yam which is spun by 
machinery is sorted with the greatest exactness, and num¬ 
bered according to its quality. This circumstance alone, 


COTTON MANUFACTURE. 


297 


which could only result from machinery, has a direct tend¬ 
ency to diminish the cost of production. Machinery not 
only adds to human power, and economizes human time, 
but it works up the most common materials into articles of 
value, and equalizes the use of valuable materials. Thus, in 
linen of which the thread is spun by the hand, a thick 
thread and a thin thread will be found side by side; and, 
therefore, not only is material wasted, but the fabric is less 
durable, because it wears unequally. 

These circumstances—the diminished cost of cotton goods, 
and the added value to the quality—have rendered it im¬ 
possible for the cheap labor of India to come into the market 
against the machinery of Europe and America. The trade 
in Indian cotton goods is gone forever. Not even the 
caprices of fashion can have an excuse for purchasing the 
dearer commodity. We make it cheaper, and we make it 
better. The trade in cotton, as it exists in the present day, 
is the great triumph of human ingenuity. England every 
years imports a considerable amount of cotton from her 
Asiatic possessions on the other side of the globe—manu¬ 
factures it into cloth (which formerly she bought from the 
inhabitants of India), transports it back to the Calcutta 
markets, and there, encumbered as it is with the cost of 
transport for fourteen thousand mileSj is enabled to sell 
with a profit to the Hindoos, cheaper than they can produce 
it themselves. They, therefore, buy it with eagerness. 

Nearly twenty years after Arkwright had begun to spin 
by machinery, that is in 1786, the price of a particular sort 
of cotton-yarn, much used in England, was thirty-eight shil¬ 
lings a pound. The same yarn in 1832, was two shillings a 
pound. In 1807, American merchants in Boston and Salem, 
were engaged in importing cotton cloth from India; now 
the same merchants export American cottons in large quan¬ 
tity for Asiatic consumption. In 1807, a particular kind of 

13 * 


298 


COTTON MANUFACTURE. 


cotton cloth sold in Boston for twenty-nine cents per yard; 
in 1823 the same cloth sold for seventeen cents, but at the 
present time a better article may be bought for seven or 
eight cents. The printing of cotton calicoes first com¬ 
menced in the United States in 1829. It has since made 
such an astonishing progress, that the quantity now printed 
exceeds 70,000,000 of yards annually. The price of calico is 
also three fourths less than it was forty years ago, the quality 
and beauty of the fabric having at the some time increased. 

We do not possess in the United States any very certain 
data showing the production of our looms. It has been cal¬ 
culated that in England, the home consumption of cotton 
cloth is equal to twenty-six yards for every individual of 
the population annually. Allowing the same ratio to exist 
between the population of the United States, and the con¬ 
sumption of cloth (the population being assumed at 20,000,- 
000), the annual quantity required would be 520,000,000 
of yards. At ten cents a yard the 520,000,000 yards of 
cloth would cost $52,000,000. At twenty cents a yard, 
which was less than the average price forty years ago, the 
cost would amount to $104,000,000. And at twelve or 
fourteen times the present price, or a dollar and twenty cents 
per yard, which proportion we get by knowing the price of 
cotton-yarn seventy years ago and at the present day, 
the cost of 520,000,000 yards of cotton cloth, would be 
$624,000,000. It is perfectly clear that no such sum of 
money could be paid by the people of the United States for 
cotton goods, and that in fact, instead of between fifty and 
sixty millions being spent in this article of clothing by per¬ 
sons of all classes, in consequence of the cheapness of the 
commodity, we should go back to very nearly the same 
consumption that existed in England before Arkwright’s in¬ 
vention, that is, to the consumption of the year 1750, when 
the whole amount of the cotton manufacture of Great 


COTTON MANUFACTURE. 


299 


Britain did not exceed the annual value of £200,000. At 
that rate of value, the quantity of cloth manufactured could 
not have been equal to one five-hundreth part of that which 
is now manufactured in England for home consumption. 
Where one person a century ago consumed one yard, the 
consumption per head has risen to about twenty-six yards. 
This vast difference in the comforts of every family, by the 
ability which they now possess of easily acquiring warm 
and healthful clothing, is a clear gain to all society, and to 
every one as a portion of society. It is more especially a 
gain to the females and the children of families, whose con¬ 
dition is always degraded when clothing is scanty. The 
power of procuring cheap clothing for themselves, and for 
their children, has a tendency to raise the condition of 
females more than any other addition to their stock of com¬ 
fort. It cultivates habits of cleanliness and decency; and 
those are little acquainted with the human character who 
can doubt whether cleanliness and decency are not only 
great aids to virtue, but virtues themselves. There is little 
self-respect amid dirt and rags, and without self-respect 
there can be no foundation for those qualities which most 
contribute to the good of society. The power of procuring 
useful clothing at a cheap price has raised the condition of 
women among us, and the influence of the condition of 
women upon the welfare of a community can never be too 
highly estimated. 

That the manufacture of cotton by machinery has pro¬ 
duced one of the great results for which machinery is to be 
desired, namely, cheapness of production, can not, we think, 
be doubted. If increased employment of human labor has 
gone along with that cheapness of production, even the 
most prejudiced can have no doubt of the advantages of 
this machinery to all classes of the community. 

At the time that Arkwright commenced his machinery, 


300 


COTTON MANUFACTURE. 


a man named Hargreave, who had set up a less perfect in¬ 
vention, was driven out of Lancashire, in England, at the 
peril of his life, by a combination of the old spinners by the 
wheel.* In 1789, when the spinning machinery was intro- 

* It is difficult at the present day to realize the amount of opposition 
■which attended the first attempts to introduce the manufacture of cotton 
into Great Britain. In order to protect woolen manufactures, laws were 
enacted forbidding the use of cotton garments, under the penalty of fine 
and imprisonment. The laboring classes, who considered cotton detri¬ 
mental to their interests, frequently manifested their hostility to it by riot • 
and bloodshed; vagabonds, too lazy to work, pretended that cotton had 
thrown them out of employment and reduced them to pauperism; and 
felons occasionally pleaded cotton as an extenuation of their crimes; an 
amusing instance of which may be found in the following letter, published 
in the “ Gentlemen’s Intelligencer,” for May, 1184: 

“ [From Cork, in Ireland.] 

“ This day, one Michael Carmody was executed here for felony, upon 
which the journeymen weavers of the city (who labor under great diffi¬ 
culties by reason of the deadness of trade, occasioned by the pernicious 
practice of wearing cottons) assembled in a body, and dressed the crimi¬ 
nal, hangman, and the gallows in cottons, in order to discourage the 
wearing thereof. And at the place of execution the criminal made the 
following remarkable speech: 

“ * Give ear, 0 good people, to the words of a dying sinner: I confess 
I have been guilty of many crimes that necessity compelled me to commit, 
which starving condition I was in, I am well assured, was occasioned by 
the scarcity of money that has proceeded from the great discouragement 
of our woolen manufactures. Therefore, good Christians, consider that if 
you go on to suppress your own goods, by wearing such cottons as I am 
now clothed in, you will bring your country into misery, which will con¬ 
sequently swarm with such unhappy malefactors as your present object 
is; and the blood of every miserable felon that will hang, after this warn¬ 
ing from the gallows, will lie at your doors. And, if you have any regard 
for the prayers of an expiring mortal, I beg that you will not buy of the 
hangman the cotton garments that now adorn the gallows, because I 
can’t rest quiet in my grave if I should see the very things wore that 
brought me to misery, thievery, and this untimely end; all which I pray 
of the gentry to hinder their children and servants, for their own charac- 


IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY. 


301 


duced into Normandy, in France, the hand-spinners there 
also destroyed the mills, and put down the manufacture for 
a time. Lancashire and Normandy are now, in England 
and France, the great seats of the cotton manufacture. 
The people of Lancashire and Normandy had not formerly 
the means, as we have now, of knowing that cheap produc¬ 
tion produces increased employment. There were many 
examples of this principle formerly to be found in arts and 
manufactures; but the people were badly educated upon 
such subjects, principally because studious and inquiring 
men had thought such matters beneath their attention. We 
live in times more favorable for these researches. The peo¬ 
ple of Lancashire and Normandy, at the period we men¬ 
tion, being ignorant of what would conduce to their real 
welfare, put down the machines. In both countries there 
were a very small portion of the community that attempted 
such an illegal act. The weavers were interested in getting 
cotton yarn cheap, so the combination was opposed to their 
interests; and the spinners were chiefly old women and 
girls, very few in number, and of little influence. Yet they 
and their friends, both in England and France, made a vio¬ 
lent clamor, and but for the protection of the laws, the 
manufactories in each country would never have been set 
up. What was the effect upon the condition of this very 
population ? M. Say, in his “ Complete Course of Political 
Economy,” states, upon the authority of an English manu- 

ter’s sake, though they have no tenderness for their country, because 
none will hereafter wear cotton but oysterwomen, criminals, hucksters, 
and common hangmen.’ ” 

What would poor Micky say now, could he rise from his dishonored grave 
and learn that, despite his prophecy, almost every man, woman, and child 
in the civilized world wore that same hated cotton that brought him to the 
hemp, and that it dispensed happiness and comfort to millions of the human 
race, who earned their subsistence by its culture and manufacture ? 


302 


IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY. 


facturer of fifty years’ experience, that, in ten years after 
the introduction of the machines, the people employed in 
the trade, spinners and weavers, were more than forty times 
as many as when the spinning was done by hand. The 
spinning machinery of Lancashire alone now produces as 
much yarn as would require more than the entire popula¬ 
tion of Great Britain to produce with the distaff and spindle. 
This immense power might be supposed to have superseded 
human labor altogether in the production of cotton yarn. 
It did no such thing. It gave a new direction to the labor 
that was formerly employed at the distaff and spindle ; but 
it increased the quantity of labor altogether employed in 
the manufacture of cotton, at least a hundredfold. It in¬ 
creased it too where an increase of labor was most desirable. 
It gave constant, easy, and not unpleasant occupation to 
women and children. In all the departments of cotton spin¬ 
ning, and in many of those of weaving by the power-loom, 
women and children are employed. There are degrees, of 
course, in the agreeable nature of the employment, particu¬ 
larly as to its being more or less cleanly. But there are 
extensive apartments in large cotton-factpries, where great 
numbers of females are daily engaged in processes which 
would not soil the nicest fingers, dressed with the greatest 
neatness, and clothed in materials (as all women are now 
clothed) that were set apart for the highest in the land a 
century ago. And yet there are some who regret that the 
aged crones no longer sit in the chimney-corner, earning a 
few cents daily by their rude industry at the wheel! 

The creation of employment among ourselves by the 
cheapness of cotton goods produced by machinery, is not to 
be considered as a mere change from the labor of India to 
the labor of England or the United States. It is a creation 
of employment, operating just in the same manner as the 
machinery did for printing books. The Indian, it is true, 


IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY. 


303 


no longer sends us his calicoes and his colored stuffs; we 
make them ourselves. But he sells us fifty times the 
amount of raw cotton that he used to when the machinery 
was first set up. The workman on the banks of the Ganges 
is no longer weaving calicoes in his loom of reeds under the 
shadow of a palm-tree; but he is gathering fifty times as 
much cotton as he gathered before, and making fifty times 
as much indigo to color it with. 

The change that has been produced upon the labor of 
India by the machinery employed for spinning and weaving 
cotton, has a parallel in the altered condition of the hand- 
loom weavers in Great Britain. In 1785 Dr. Cartwright 
produced his first power loom. It was a rude machine 
compared with the refinements that have successively been 
made on his principle. Every resistance was made to the 
introduction of this new power. The mill owners were 
slow to perceive its advantages; the first mills in which 
these looms were introduced were burned. The hand-loom 
weavers worked at a machine which little varied from that 
with which their Flemish instructors had worked three 
centuries before. But no prejudice and no violence could 
prevent the progress of the new machine. The object for 
which machines are established, and the object which they 
do effect, is cheapness of production. Machines either save 
material or diminish labor, or both. “ Which is the cheap¬ 
est,” said the committee of the House of Commons to Jo- 
seph Foster, “ a piece of goods made by a power-loom, or a 
piece of goods made by a hand-loom ?” He answered, “ a 
piece made by the power-loom is the cheapest.” This answer 
was decisive. The hand-loom weavers of England have con¬ 
tinued to struggle, even up to this time, with the greater pro¬ 
ductive power of the power-loom; but the struggle is nearly 
over. It would have been terminated long ago, if the miser¬ 
able wages which the hand-loom weaver obtained, had not 


304 


EFFECTS OF IMPROVEMENTS. 


been eked out by charitable contributions. It was the duty 
of society to break the fall of the workman who were thrust 
out of their place by the invention; but had society at¬ 
tempted to interpose between the new machines and the 
old, so as to have kept the old workers to their less profit¬ 
able employment, there would have been far more derange¬ 
ments of labor to mitigate. Upon the introduction of the 
spinning machinery into England, there was great temporary 
distress of the hand-spinners, with rioting and destruction 
of spinning-mills. If these modes of resistance to invention 
had gone on to prevent altogetherthe manufacture of cotton 
thread by the spinning machinery in England, the consump¬ 
tion of cotton cloth would have been little increased, and 
the number of persons engaged in the manufacture would 
have been twenty, thirty, or even forty times less than the 
present number. But there would have been another re¬ 
sult. Would the great body of the people of other coun¬ 
tries have chosen to wear for many years dear cloth instead 
of cheap cloth, that a few thousand spinners might have 
been kept at their ancient wheels in England ? Capital can 
easily shift its place, and invention follows where capital 
goes before. The people of France, and Germany, and 
America, would have employed the cheap machine instead 
of the dear one; and the people of England would have 
had cheap cloth instead of dear cloth' from thence. We 
can not build walls of brass round any country; and the 
thin walls of prohibitive duties are very easily broken 
through. A profit of from twenty to thirty per cent, will 
pour in any given quantity of smuggled goods that a nation 
living under prohibitive laws can demand. Bonaparte, in 
the height of his power, passed the celebrated Berlin decree 
for the exclusion of all English produce from the continent 
of Europe. But English merchants laughed at him. The 
whole coast of France, and Holland, and Italy, became one 


COTTON MACHINERY. 


305 


immense receiving place for smuggled goods. If he had 
lined the whole coast with all the six hundred thousand 
soldiers that he marched to Russia, instead of a few custom¬ 
house officers, he could not have stopped the introduction 
of English produce. It was against the nature of things 
that the people who had been accustomed to cheap goods 
should buy dear ones ; or that they should go without any 
article, whether of necessity or luxury, whose use had be¬ 
come general. Mark, therefore, if the cotton-spinners of 
England had triumphed eighty years ago over Arkwright’s 
machinery, there would not have been a single man, woman, 
or child of those spinners employed at all , within twenty 
years after that most fatal triumph. The manufacture of 
cotton would have gone to other countries; cotton-spinning 
in England would have been at an end. The same thing 
would have happened if the power-loom, fifty years ago, 
had been put down by combination; other countries would 
have used the invention which England would have been 
foolish enough to reject. Forty years ago the manufactur¬ 
ers of the United States had adopted the power-loom. 

In the cotton manufacture, which from its immense 
amount possesses the means of rewarding the smallest im¬ 
provement, invention has been at work, and most success¬ 
fully, to make machines that make machines that make 
the cotton thread. There is a part of the machinery used 
in cotton-spinning called a reed. It consists of a number 
of pieces of wire, set side by side in a frame, resembling, as 
far as such things admit of comparison, a comb with two 
backs. These reeds are of various lengths and degrees of 
fineness; but they all- consist of cross pieces of wire, fast¬ 
ened at regular intervals between longitudinal pieces of 
split cane, into which they are tied with waxed thread. A 
machine now does the work of reed-making. The materials 
enter the machine in the shape of two or three yards of 


306 


COTTON MACHINERY. 


cane, and many yards of wire and thread; and the machine 
cuts the wire, places each small piece with unfailing regu¬ 
larity between the canes, twists the thread round the cane 
with a knot that can not slip, every time a piece of wire is 
put in, and does several yards of this extraordinary work 
in less time than we have taken to write the description. 
There is another machine for making a part of the machine 
for cotton-spinning, even more wonderful. The cotton wool 
is combed by circular cards of every degree of fineness; 
and the card-making machine, receiving only a supply of 
leather and wire, does its own work without the aid of 
hands. It punches the leather—cuts the wire—passes it 
through the leather—clinches it behind—and gives it the 
proper form, of the tooth in front—producing a complete 
card of several feet in circumference in a wonderfully short 
time. All men feel the benefit of such inventions, because 
they lessen the cost of production. The necessity for them 
always precedes their use. There were not reed-makers 
and card-makers enough to supply the demands of the cot¬ 
ton machinery; so invention went to work to see how ma¬ 
chines could make machines; and the consequent diminished 
cost of machinery has diminished the price of clothing. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


THE WOOLEN MANUFACTURE.—DIVISIONS OF EMPLOYMENT.—EARLY HISTORY.— 
PROHIBITORY LAWS.—THE JACQUARD LOOM.—MIDDLE-AGE LEGISLATION.—SUMP¬ 
TUARY LAWS.—THE SILK MANUFACTURE.—RIBBON-WEAVING.—THE LINEN MANU¬ 
FACTURE.—OLD WOOLEN RAGS.—CLOTH-PRINTING.—BLEACHING. 


Those who have not taken the trouble to witness, or to 
inquire into, the processes by which they are surrounded 
with the conveniences and comforts of civilized life, can 
have no idea of the vast variety of ways in which invention 
is at work to lessen the cost of production. The people of 
India, who spin their cotton wholly by hand, and weave 
their cloth in a rude loom, would doubtless be astonished 
when they first saw the effects of machinery, in the calico 
which is returned to their own shores, made from the 
material brought from their own shores, cheaper than they 
themselves could make it. But their indolent habits would 
not permit them to inquire how machinery produced this 
wonder. There are many among us who only know that 
the wool grows upon the sheep’s back, and that it is con¬ 
verted into a coat by labor and machinery. They do not 
estimate the prodigious power of thought—the patient 
labor—the unceasing watchfulness, the frequent disappoint¬ 
ment, the uncertain profit—which many have had to en¬ 
counter in bringing this machinery to perfection, and in 
organizing the modes of its working, in connection with 
labor. Further, their knowledge of history may have 
been confined to learning by rote the dates when kings 


308 


WOOLEN MANUFACTURE. 


began to reign, with the names of the battles they fought 
or the rebels they executed. Of the progress of commerce 
and the arts they may have been taught little. The records 
of wool constitute a real part of the history of England; 
and form, in our opinion, a subject of far more permanent 
importance than the scandalous annals of the wives of 
Henry VIII., or the mistresses of Charles II. 

Let us first take a broad view of the more prominent facts 
that belong to the woolen manufacture; and then proceed 
to notice those of other textile fabrics. 

The reader will remember that when the fur-traders re¬ 
fused to advance to John Tanner a supply of blankets for 
his winter consumption, he applied himself to make gar¬ 
ments out of moose-skins. The skin was ready manufac¬ 
tured to his hands when he had killed and stripped the 
moose; but still a blanket brought across the Atlantic was 
to him a cheaper and a better article of clothing than the 
moose-skin which he had at hand; and he felt it a priva¬ 
tion when the trader refused it to him upon the accustomed 
credit. It never occurred to him to think of manufactur¬ 
ing a blanket; although he was in some respects a manu¬ 
facturer. He was a manufacturer of sugar, among the 
various trades which he followed. He used to travel 
about the country till he had found a grove of maple-trees; 
and here he would sit down for a month or two till he had 
extracted sugar from the maples. Why did he not attempt 
to make blankets ? He had not that Accumulated Knowl¬ 
edge, and he did not work with that Division of Labor , 
which are essential to the manufacture of blankets—both 
of which principles are carried to their highest perfection 
when capital enables the manufacture of woolen cloth, or 
any other article, to be carried forward upon a large scale. 

We will endeavor to trace what accumulations of skill, 
and what divisions of employment, were necessary to 


DIVISION OF EMPLOYMENTS. 


309 


enable Tanner to clothe himself with a piece of woolen 
cloth. We shall not stop to inquire whether the skill has 
produced the division of employment, or the division of 
employment has produced the skill. It is sufficient for us 
to show, that the two principles are in joint operation, 
unitedly carrying forward the business of production in the 
most profitable manner. It is enough for us to know, that 
where there is no skill there is no division of employment, 
and where there is no division of employment there is no 
skill. Skill and division of employment are inseparably 
wedded. If they could be separated, they would in their 
separation cease to work profitably. They are kept together 
by the constant energy of capital, devising the most profit¬ 
able direction for labor. 

Before a blanket can be made, we must have the material 
for making a blanket. Tanner had not the material, because 
he was not a cultivator. Before wood can be grown there 
must be, as we have shown, appropriation of land. When 
this appropriation takes place, the owner of the land either 
cultivates it himself, which is the earliest stage in the divi¬ 
sion of agricultural employment—or he obtains a portion 
of the produce in the shape of corn or cattle, or in a money 
payment. But the farmer, to manufacture wool at the 
greatest advantage, must possess capital, and carry for¬ 
ward the principle of the division of employment by hiring 
laborers. We use the word manufacture of wool advis¬ 
edly ; for all farming processes are manufacturing processes, 
and invariably reduce themselves to change of form, as all 
commercial processes reduce themselves to change of place. 
If the capital of the farmer is sufficient to enable him to 
farm upon a large scale, he divides his laborers; and one be¬ 
comes a shepherd, one a plowman—one sows the ground, 
and one washes and shears the sheep, more skillfully than 
another. If he has a considerable farm, he divides his land, 


310 


WOOLEN MANUFACTURE. 


also, upon the same principle, and has pasture, and arable 
land, and rotation of crops. By these divisions he is enabled 
to manufacture wool cheaper than the farmer upon a small 
scale, who employs one man to do every thing, and has not 
a proper proportion of pasture and arable land, or a due 
rotation of crops. At every division of employment skill 
must be called forth in a higher perfection than when two 
or more employments were joined together; and the chief 
director of the skill, the capitalist himself, or farmer, must 
require more skill to make all the parts which compose his 
manufactory work together harmoniously. 

But we have new divisions of employment to trace before 
the wool can be got to the manufacturer. These employ¬ 
ments are created by what may be called the local division 
of labor. It is convenient to rear the sheep upon the 
mountains of Vermont, because there the pastures are fitted 
for the growth of wool. It is convenient to manufacture 
the wool into cloth at Lowell, because water-power is there 
at hand to give motion to the machinery, with which the 
manufacture is carried on. The farmer in Vermont, and 
the manufacturer of cloth at Lowell, must be brought 
into connection. In the infancy of commerce one or both 
of them would make a journey to establish this connection; 
but the cost of that journey would add to the cost of the 
wool, and therefore lessen the consumption of woolen cloth. 
The division of employment goes on to the creation of a 
wool-agent, or dealer in wool, who either purchases directly 
from the grower, or sells to the manufacturer for a com¬ 
mission from the grower. The grower, therefore, sends 
the wool direct to the agent, whose business it is to find 
out what manufacturer is in want of wool. If the agent 
did not exist, the manufacturer would have to find out, by 
a great deal of personal exertion, what farmer had wool to 
sell; or the farmer would have to find out, with the same 


WOOLEN MANUFACTURE. 


311 


exertion, what manufacturer wanted to buy wool. The 
agent receives a commission, which the seller and buyer 
ultimately unite in paying. They co-operate to establish 
a wool-dealer, just as we all co-operate to establish an 
express; and just as the agent, who delivers a number of 
packages to a great many individuals, does that service at 
little more cost to all, than each individual would pay for 
the delivery of a single package, so does the wool-dealer 
exchange the wool between the grower and the manufac¬ 
turer, at little more cost to a large number of the growers 
who employ him, than each would be obliged to pay in 
expenses and loss of time to travel from Vermont to Lowell 
to sell his wool. 

We have, however, a great many more divisions of em¬ 
ployment to follow out before the wool is conveyed from 
the farm where it is grown to the place where it is manu¬ 
factured. If the packs are taken on shipboard, we have all 
the variety of occupations, involving different degrees of 
skill, w r hich make up the life of a mariner; if they go for¬ 
ward upon the rail-road we have all the higher degrees of 
skill involved in their transport which belong to the busi¬ 
ness of an engineer; or if they finally reach their destina¬ 
tion by canal, we have another division of labor that adjusts 
itself to the management of boats in canals. But the ship, 
the rail-road, the canal, which are created by the necessity 
of transporting commodities from place to place, have been 
formed after the most laborious exercise of the highest 
science, working with the greatest mechanical skill; and 
they exist only through the energy of prodigious accumu¬ 
lations of capital, the growth of centuries of patient and 
painful labor and economy. 

We have at length the wool in a manufactory. The 
first class of persons who prepare the wool, are the sorters 
and pickers. It is their business to separate the fine from 


312 


WOOLEN MANUFACTURE. 


the coarse locks, so that each may be suited to different 
fabrics. There is judgment required, which could not exist 

without division of labor; 
and the business, too, 
must be done rapidly, or 
the cost of sorting and 
picking would outweigh 
the advantage. The sec¬ 
ond principal operation 
is scouring. Here the 
men are constantly em¬ 
ployed in washing the 
wool, to free it from all 
impurities. It is evident 
microscopic appearance of wool.* that the same man could 

not profitably pass from 
the business of sorting to that of scouring, and back again 
—from dry work to wet, and from wet to dry. When the 
wool is out of the hands of the scourers it comes into those 
of the dyers, who color it with the various chemical agents 
applied to the manufacture. The carders next receive it, 
who tear it with machines till it attains the requisite fine¬ 
ness. From the carders it passes to the slubbers, who form 
it into tough loose threads; and thence to spinners, who 
make the threads finer and stronger. There are sub-divis¬ 
ions of employment which are not essential for us to notice, 
to give an idea of the great division of employment, and 

* The fibers of wool, when examined under the microscope, are seen to 
possess a scaly surface, causing the edge of the fiber to have the appear¬ 
ance of a fine saw, with the teeth sloping in the direction from the roots 
to the points. Were a number of thimbles with uneven edges inserted 
into each other, a cylinder would result not dissimilar in outline from a 
filament of merino wool. It is to this peculiar -structure that wool owes 
its property of felting. 







WOOLEN MANUFACTURE. 


313 


the consequent accumulation of peculiar skill, required to 
prepare wool to be made into yarn, to be made into woolen 
cloth. 

The next stages in the manufacture are the spinning, the 
warping, the sizing, and the weaving. These are all dis¬ 
tinct operations, and are all carried forward with the most 
elaborate machinery, adapted to the division of labor which 
it enforces, and by which it is enforced. 

But there is a great deal still to be done before the cloth 
is fit to be worn. The cloth, now woven, has to be scoured 
as the wool was. There is a subsequent process called 
burling, at which females are constantly employed. The 
boiling and milling come next, in which the cloth is again 
exposed to the action of water, and beaten so as to give it 
toughness and consistency. Dressers, called giggers, next 
take it in hand, who also work with machinery upon the 
wet cloth. It has then to be dried in houses where the 
temperature is sometimes as high as 130 degrees, and where 
the men work almost naked. It is evident that the boilers 
and dressers could not profitably work in the dry-houses; 
and that there must be division of employment to prevent 
those sudden transitions which would destroy the human 
frame much more quickly than a regular exposure to cold 
or heat, to damp or dryness. The cloth must be next crop¬ 
ped or cut upon the face, to remove the shreds of wool 
which deform the surface in every direction. When cut, it 
has to be brushed dry by machinery, to get out the crop¬ 
pings which remain in its texture. This done, it is dyed in 
the shape of cloth, as it was formerly dyed in the shape of 
wool. Then come a variety of processes, to increase the 
delicacy of the fabric: singeing, by passing the cloth within a 
burning distance of red-hot cylinders; friezing, to raise a nap 
upon the cloth ; glossing, by carrying over it heavy heated 
plates of iron; pressing, in which operation of the press red- 

14 


314 


WOOLEN MANUFACTURE. 


hot plates are also employed; and drawing, in which men, 
with fine needles, draw up minute holes in the cloth when 
it has passed through the last operation. Then comes the 
packing; and after all these processes it must be bought by 
a wholesale dealer, and again by a retailer, before it reaches 
the consumer. Between the growth of the fleece of wool, 
and the completion of a coat by a skillful tailor—who, it is 
affirmed, puts five-and-twenty thousand stitches into it— 
What an infinite division of employments! w r hat inventions 
of science! what exercises of ingenuity! w r hat unwearied 
application! what painful, and too often unhealthful labor! 
And yet if men are to be clothed well and cheaply, all these 
manifold processes are not in vain; and the individual in¬ 
jury in some brances of the employ is not to be compared 
to the suffering that would ensue if cloth were not made at 
all, or if it were made at such a cost that the most wealthy 
only could afford to wear it. But for the accumulation ot 
knowledge, and the division of employments, engaged in 
the manufacture of cloth, and set in operation by large cap¬ 
ital, we should each be obliged to be contented with a 
blanket such as John Tanner desired, and very few indeed 
would even obtain that blanket; for if skill and division of 
labor were not to go on in one branch, they would not go 
on in another, and then we should have nothing to give in 
exchange for the blanket. The individual injury to health, 
also, produced by the division of labor, is not so great, upon 
the average, as if there were no division. All the returns 
of human life in this country show an extremely little differ¬ 
ence in the effect upon life, even of what we consider the 
most unhealthy trades; and this proceeds from that extra¬ 
ordinary power of the human body to adapt itself to a 
habit, however apparently injurious, which is one of the 
most beautiful evidences of the compensating principle 
which prevails throughout the moral world. 


WOOLEN MANUFACTURE. 


315 


The wool manufacture of Great Britain employs very 
nearly 300,000 persons; in the various processes connected 
with the production of cloth, worsted, flannel, blankets, and 
carpets. What a contrast to all this variety of labor is the 
history of the earlier stages of the manufacture of woolen 
cloth. It is unnecessary to go back to the time of Henry 
III., when the production of wool was in. such an imperfect 
state through flocks of sheep being scattered over immense 
tracts of waste land, that a manor was held under the 
crown by the tenure of gathering wool for the Queen. Ac¬ 
cording to the record, Peter de Baldewyn was to gather 
the wool from the thorns that had torn it from the sheep’s 
back; and if he did not choose to gather it he was to forfeit 
twenty shillings.* In the time of Edward III., according 
to Fuller, in his “ Church History,” the English clothiers 
were wholly unskillful; “ knowing no more what to do with 
their wool than the sheep which wear it, as to any artificial 
and curious drapery, their best cloth being no better than 
frieze, such their coarseness for want of skill in the making.” 
When the Flemish clothiers came into England, the manu¬ 
facture improved; in 'spite of the regulating power of the 
state, which was perpetually interferring with material, 
quality, and wages. In time wool became the chief com¬ 
modity of England. The woolsack of the House of Lords, 
as the seat of the Lord Chancellor is designated, was typical 
of this staple industry; and of the mode also in which the 
majesty, of legislation sat heavy upon the produce. To en¬ 
courage the manufacture nothing was to be woven but 
wool. From the cradle to the grave all were to be wrapt 
in wool.f In order to promote the knitting of caps from 

* Blount’s “Ancient Tenures,” ed. 1784, p. 183. 

\ It was enacted at one time by the English Parliament, that no per¬ 
son should be buried in any shroud, or winding-sheet, which was com¬ 
posed of material other than wool. 


316 


WOOLEN MANUFACTURE. 


woolen yarn, the English parliament in 1571, enacted 
“ that every person above the age of seven years should 
wear a woolen cap of English make, on Sundays and holi¬ 
days, on pain of forfeiting 3s. 4 d. a day if they neglected 
to wear such a cap, lords, knights, and landed gentry ex¬ 
cepted.” The genius of prohibition prevented the exchange 
of wool with other manufactured commodities; and there¬ 
fore, to keep up rents, Narcissa was “odious in woolen,” 
and a Holland shirt—for British linen did not exist—was a 
rare commodity, cheap at “ eight shillings an ell,” as in the 
days of Dame Quickly. 

This was the state of things in Great Britain at the end 
of the seventeenth century, and somewhat later. The man¬ 
ufacturers clamored against the exportation of wool; and 
the agriculturalists at the same time resisted the importation 
of Irish and Scotch cattle. The parliament listened to both 
sets of clamorers. It said to the people, You of trade shall 
not be ruined by the land selling wool to foreigners—there 
shall be no competition; you shall buy the wool at the 
lowest price. And then parliament turned to the com¬ 
plaining grazier, and said, The cloth-maker and his men 
shall not ruin you by buying meat cheap—no Irish cattle or 
Scotch sheep shall come here to lower your prices. In 1566 
it was enacted that whoever imported into England any live 
sheep, should suffer for the first offense the forfeiture of his 
entire substance, imprisonment for a year, and the loss of 
his left hand, while the second offense was death without 
benefit of clergy. This act was passed under the impression 
that the English sheep was the only kind in the world suited 
to the manufacture of broadcloth. From 1664 to 1824 the 
exportation of wool from England was strictly prohibited. 
The importation was sometimes prevented by high duties— 
sometimes encouraged by low. The manufacture was con¬ 
stantly struggling with these attempts of the state to hold 


WOOLEN MANUFACTURE. 


317 


a balance between what were so universally considered 
as conflicting interests. In 1844 the whole system was 
abandoned. In 1853, Great Britain imported 117,000,000 
pounds of sheep and lamb’s wool—of which three fifths 
came from Australia—and 2,000,000 of alpaca and lama 
wool. The wool-growers at home still found a ready 
market; the great body of the population had good coats 
and flannels, and blankets; and, in addition, English manu¬ 
facturers exported £10,000,000 sterling of woolen manufac¬ 
tures to the United States and other countries. 

The employment of wool in the manufacture of broad¬ 
cloth and flannel was, a few years ago, almost the entire 
business of the woolen factories. The novel uses to which 
wool is now applied, and the almost innumerable varieties 
of articles of clothing which are produced from long wool 
and short wool—from combinations of alpaca wool and 
coarse wool, of wool with cotton, of wool with silk—to¬ 
gether with the introduction of brilliant dyes and tasteful 
designs, formerly unknown—have established vast seats of 
manufacture in Great Britain which are almost peculiar to 
that country, and which have converted, in a few years, 
humble villages into great cities.* The finest Paisley 

* The largest single manufacturing establishment in the world has re¬ 
cently been opened at Saltaire, Yorkshire, England, for the manufacture 
of cloth from the wool, or hair, of the alpaca goat. The vastness of this 
great work will be seen from the following statement, which yet applies 
to only one departmant. The weaving-shed contains 1200 looms. The 
length of the shafting is nearly ten miles, and weighs between six and 
seven hundred tons. The steam-engines, to work these shafts, are equal 
to 1250 horse-power, and the looms in the one apartment are capable of 
weaving thirty thousand yards, or nearly eighteen miles of alpaca cloth 
every day, and an aggregate length of 5688 miles of cloth annually. The 
building covers six acres of ground; and the floors in the several build¬ 
ings, including warehouses and sheds, cover an extent of eleven acres 
and a half. 

Around this enormous mill is growing up the town of Saltaire. The 


318 


WOOLEN MANUFACTURE. 


(Scotch) shawls rival the elaborate handicraft of Hindoos- 
tan; and, what is of more importance, the humblest female 


MECHANISM OF POWER-LOOM. 



town begins with seven hundred houses, built on the best principles, and 
including every convenience necessary for the health and comfort of its 
inhabitants. It will consist of spacious squares and streets, grounds for 
recreation, schools, places of worship, baths, and wash-houses. The al¬ 
paca wool has been known in England for about forty years, but its man¬ 
ufacture is comparatively recent. The manufacture was commenced by 
Mr. Salt, in 1836. For the five years succeeding, the average annual 
imports into G-reat Britain were 560,000 lbs. In 1851 the consumption 
was 2,186,480 lbs. 
















WOOLEN MANUFACTURE. 


319 


may purchase a tasteful article of dress at a price which a 
few years ago would have been thought fabulous. The won¬ 
derful variety of patterns which we see in these and other 
productions of modern skill are effected by the Jacquard 
apparatus, in which the pattern depends upon the disposi¬ 
tion of holes pierced in separate bits of pasteboard. In 
common weaving, the weft 
threads pass alternately under 
and over the entire warp 
threads, which are lifted up to 
allow the weft in the shuttle 
to traverse from one side to 
the other. The Jacquard ap¬ 
paratus determines, by the 
number and arrangement of 
the holes in the cards, which 
of the separate warp threads 
shall be so lifted ; for at every 
throw of the shuttle the blank 
part of each card moves a 
series of levers which raise 
certain warp threads; while 
other levers, passing into the 
holes in the card, do not affect 
the other warp threads. In 
this way, patterns of the great¬ 
est complexity are woven in 
cotton, and worsted, and silk; 
so that even a minute work 
of art, such as a portrait or a 
landscape, may be produced from the loom. Every pattern 
requires a separate set of cards. We do not expect this 
brief notice to be readily understood. Those who would 
comprehend the extent of ingenuity involved in the princi- 



JACQUARD CARDS. 




320 


WOOLEN MANUFACTUKE. 


pie of this invention, and the beautiful results of which it is 
capable, should witness its operation in a Jacquard loom. 
In a bobbin-net machine the cards are connected with a re¬ 
volving pentagonal bar, each side of which is pierced with 
holes, corresponding with the pins or levers above. When a 
card comes over the topmost side of the pentagon the levers 
drop ; but those pins only which enter through the holes 
in the card affect the pattern which is being worked. Any 
one who views this complicated arrangment in a lace-machine, 
must give no small amount of attention to comprehend its 
mysterious movements; and when the connection is per¬ 
ceived between that chain of dropping cards, and the flower 
that is being worked in the lace, a vague sense of the mani¬ 
fold power of invention comes over the mind—we had 
almost said an awful sense. 

If there be one thing more remarkable than another in 
the visible condition of the people of the United States and 
of Great Britain, it is the universality of useful, elegant, 
and cheap clothing. There is very small distinction in the 
ordinary coat and pants of the millionaire and the best dress 
of the artizan ; and not a great deal more in the gown and 
shawl of the aristocratic lady and those of the handmaid of 
her toilet. Perhaps the absence of mere finery, and the taste 
which is an accompaniment of superior education, consti¬ 
tute the chief difference in the dress of various ranks. This 
feature of the present times is a part of our social history. 

For several centuries the domestic trade of England was 
hemmed round and fettered by laws against extravagance 
in dress, which had always been a favorite subject for the 
experimentalizing of barbarous legislation. An act of 1463, 
recites that the Commons pray their lord the king to re¬ 
member that in the times of his noble progenitors, ordi¬ 
nances and statutes were made for the apparel and array of 
the commons, as well of men as of women, so that none of 


SILK MANUFACTURE. 


321 


them should use or wear any inordinate or excessive ap¬ 
parel, but only according to their degrees. However, we 
find that all these ordinances had been utterly fruitless. 
The parliament makes new ordinances. The nobles, ac¬ 
cording to these, may wear whatever they please ; knights 
and their wives were to wear no cloth of gold, or fur of 
sable ; no person under the state of a lord to wear any 
purple silk; no esquires or gentlemen and their wives any 
silk at all; no persons not having possessions of the yearly 
value of forty pounds, any fur ; and, what is cruel indeed, 
no widow but such as hath possessions of the value of forty 
pounds, shall wear any fur, any gold or silver girdle, or 
any kerchief that had cost more than three shillings and 
fourpence; persons not having forty shillings a-year were 
denied the enjoyment of fustian and scarlet cloth; the 
yoeman was to have no stuffing in his doublet; nor servants 
in husbandry, broadcloth of a higher price than two shil¬ 
lings a yard. The length of gowns, jackets, and cloaks, was 
prescribed by the same statute; and the unhappy tailor 
who exceeded the length by the breadth of his nail, was to 
be mulcted in the same penalties as those' who flaunted in 
skirts of more than needful longitude. The men and 
women of the mystery and workmanship of silk prefer their 
piteous complaint to parliament, that silk-work, ready 
wrought is brought into the realm. If it had occurred to 
them to petition that the gentlemen and their wives might 
be permitted to wear satin, as well as their lords, their 
piteous complaint of want of occupation might have been 
more easily redressed than by foreign prohibition. Sump¬ 
tuary laws have long been abolished; but to them suc¬ 
ceeded the laws of custom, which prescribed one sort of 
dress to one condition of people, and another to another. 
We can not doubt which state gives most employment to 
manufactures—the law of exclusiveness, or the law of uni- 

14 * 


322 


SILK MANUFACTURE. 


versality. If the laborer and artificer were still restricted, 
by enactment or by custom, to the wearing of cloth of a 
certain price per yard, we may be quite sure that the 
manufacture of the finer cloths would be in no flourishing 
condition: and if the servant-maid could not put on her 
Sunday gown of silk, we may be equally clear that the silk- 
trade would continue to be the small thing that it was a 
century ago, instead of being, as it is now, one of the great 
staple trades of the country. 

When the frame-work knitters of silk stockings petitioned 
Oliver Cromwell for a charter, they said, “ the Englishman 
buys silk of the stranger for twenty marks, and sells him the 
same again for one hundred pounds.” The higher pride of 
the Englishman of the present day is, that he buys seven 
million pounds of raw silk from the stranger, employs a 
hundred and fourteen thousand of his countrymen in the 
manufacture of it by the aid of machinery, and sell it to the 
stranger and his own people, at a price as low as that of 
the calico of half a century ago. 

When a boy who keeps silk-worms upon mulberry leaves, 
puts a spinning-worm into a little paper bag, and finally ob¬ 
tains an oval ball of silk, he does upon a small scale what is 
done in the silk-growing countries upon a large scale. When 
he winds off his cocoon of silk upon a little reel, he is en¬ 
gaged in the first process of silk making. There must be 
myriads of silk-worms reared to produce the seven million 
pounds of raw silk that Great Britain manufactures. The 
school-boy, from three or four silk-worms, can obtain a little 
skein of silk, which he carefully puts between the leaves of 
a book, and looks at it again and again, in delight at its 
glossy beauty. Perhaps he does not take the trouble to 
think how many such skeins would be required to produce 
a pair of silk stockings. As the school-boy puts his skein 
into a book, so the silk-producers of India, Italy, Persia, and 



HANKS OF SILK, a, BENGAL; b. ITALIAN; C, PERSIAN; d, BROUSSA. 



EGYPTIAN SILK REEL. 













































324 


SILK MANUFACTURE. 


Turkey, send us their hanks of silk, which we call by vari¬ 
ous names, made up as shown in the figures. In Egypt, a 
silk-producing country, a woman has a simple machine for 
preparing the hanks of silk for the purposes of commerce. 
She winds the silk upon a reel. She has no moving power 
but that of her hand and arm. In England a woman also 
attends to a winding-machine, by which the silk is trans¬ 
ferred to bobbins, for the purpose of being spun to various 
degrees of fineness. She has no labor to perform, beyond 
the providing a supply of material to be wound, removing 
a bobbin when it is filled, placing* an empty one its place, 
and occasionally piecing a broken thread. She is doing 
what the machine can not do—adjusting her operations to 
many varying circumstances. The machine is moved by 
the steam-engine; but the steam-engine, the reels, and the 
bobbins would work unavailingly, without the guidance of 
the mind that waits upon and watches them. 



MICROSCOPIC APPEARANCE OP THE STLX FIBER. 


The peculiarity in the manufacture of silk-twist, or thread, 
as distinguished from that of cotton, or flax, or wool, is that 
it is produced naturally in one uninterrupted length. The 
object of the machinery of a silk-mill is, not to combine 









LINEN MANUFACTURE. 


325 


short fibers in a continuous thread by spinning, but to wind 
and twist, so as to unite many slight threads already formed 
into one thread of sufficient strength for the purpose of 
weaving or of sewing. The subsequent processes are the 
same as with the fibrous substances. The machinery by 
which‘these processes are carried on has been improved, 
by successive degrees, since Thomas Lombe erected the 
first silk-mill in England, in the beginning of the eight¬ 
eenth century. He obtained a patent which expired in 
1732 ; and parliament, refusing to renew his patent, 
granted him a compensation, upon the condition that he 
should deposit an exact model of his machinery in the 
Tower of London. That model was shown to the visitors 
of the Tower in the present century; and, by comparison 
with the vast array of spindles in a modern silk-mill, would 
seem as inefficient as the flail compared with the thrashing- 
machine. 

Thomas Firmin, an English philanthropic writer, who 
published “ Proposals for the Employment of the Poor,” in 
1681, says, “It is a thing greatly to be wished that we could 
make linen cloth here as cheap as they send it us from 
abroad.” He thought the poor might then be employed; 
but he despairingly adds, “ if that can not be done, nor any 
other way found out to employ our poor people, we had 
much better lose something by the labor of our poor, than 
lose all their labor;” and so he proposes to give those who 
were idle flax and hemp to spin in spacious workhouses. 
The notion was a benevolent one; and it was the favorite 
scheme, for half a century, to destroy idleness and beggary 
in England, by setting up manufactories at the public cost. 
Defoe saw the fallacy of the principle, and resisted it with 
his strong common sense: “ Suppose now a workhouse for 
the employment of poor children sets them to spinning of 
worsted. For every skein of worsted these poor children 


326 


LINEN MANUFACTURE. 


spin, there must be a skein the less spun by some poor per¬ 
son or family that spun it before.” Defoe saw that there 
could be no profitable increase of labor without increase 
of consumption; and he argues that if the Czar of Muscovy 
would order his people to wear stockings, and w could 
supply them, the poor might then be set to work. The in¬ 
crease of consumption, all over the world, is produced by 



MICROSCOPIC APPEARANCE OP THE FLAX FIBER. 


the inventions which diminish the cost of production. En¬ 
gland now makes linen cloth here cheaper than it can be 
sent to her from abroad ; and the result is that in 1853 she 
exported linen manufactures to the extent of six million 
pounds sterling; and employed a hundred thousand per¬ 
sons in the manufacture. In the flax-mill of Messrs. Mar¬ 
shall, at Leeds, England, where all the operations of spin¬ 
ning are carried on in one enormous room, seventy thousand 
pounds of flax are worked up weekly into yarn. The ques¬ 
tion of flax-cultivation in Great Britain and the United 
States has been much agitated of late years. It is not an 
easy matter to provide for the demand of the flax-manufac¬ 
tures. The great flax-mill at Leeds would require the flax- 






OLD WOOLEN RAGS. 


327 


cultivation of six thousand acres, to keep its spindles at 
work for one year. 

One striking peculiarity of the manufacturing processes 
of the present day, is, that comparatively little is wasted, 
the material after subserving a useful purpose in one form, 
being worked over and made valuable in another and dif¬ 
ferent form. The conversion of old linen and cotton-rags 
into paper is an illustration familiar to every one, but the 
utilization of old woolen-rags, which can not be used for 
the manufacture of paper, and have generally been consid¬ 
ered as entirely worthless, except for manure, is both novel 
and interesting. The following graphic description of the 
economic applications of this variety of refuse material is 
copied from a recent publication.* 

In the somewhat hilly district of Yorkshire, between 
Huddersfield and Leeds stands the little town of Dews¬ 
bury. The stranger on alighting from the rail-way car is 
struck with the immense warehouses built by the rail-way 
company. For such small stations these are mysterious 
erections. But if he enters the warehouses, he will find 
piled up hundreds of bales, containing the cast-off garments 
of Great Britain and the continent of Europe. Here, in 
fact, from all parts of the world, are brought the tattered 
remains of the clothes, some of which have been worn by 
royalty, as well as by peers and peasants. The rich broad¬ 
cloth of the nobles here commingles with the livery of their 
servants, and the worsted blouses of French republicans; 
while American undershirts, pantaloons, and all other 
worsted and woolen goods, may be there found, all re¬ 
duced to one common level, and known by one common 
application of “ rags.” The walls of the town are placarded 
with placards, announcing public auctions of “ Scotch shod¬ 
dies,” “mungoes,” “rags,” and such like articles of mer- 
* “ Art and Industry,” Now York, 1854. 


328 


OLD WOOLEN RAGS. 


chandise, and buyers may be seen examining with great 
attention the various bales; some of which are assorted 
into “whites,” “blue-stockings,” “black-stockings,” “car¬ 
pets,” “shawls,” “stuffs,” “skirtings,” “linseys,” “black- 
cloth,” etc. etc. The prices which these old worn-out 
articles bring is surprising to the uninitiated. Old stock¬ 
ings will realize from £7 to £10 a ton; wdiile white flannels 
will sometimes sell for as much as £20 a ton, or even more. 
The “hinds,” or black cloth when clipped free from all 
seams and threads, are worth from £20 to £30 per ton, 
while the rubbish consisting of seams, linseys, and inde- 
scribables, are purchased by the chemist for the manufac¬ 
ture of prussiate of potash for from £2 to £3 per ton. 

It will be seen that assorting these old woolens is equally 
important with the assorting of the different qualities of 
new wool; and there is the additional consideration of 
colors to render assorting still more necessary. In the 
assortment, the flannel rags are the most valuable, the 
stockings are the next in value to the flannels, on account 
of the strength and elasticity of the wool. The peculiar 
stitch or bend of the worsted in stocking manufacture, and 
the hot water and washing to which they are subjected 
during their stocking existence, have the effect of pro¬ 
ducing a permanent elasticity which no new wool can be 
found to possess. Hence old stockings are always in great 
demand. 

All the various assortments are next converted into 
shoddy, which is the general term for the wool produced 
by grinding, or more technically the “pulling up” the 
materials. The usual method of effecting this, is to first 
carefully assort the rags, so as to see that not a particle of 
cotton remains on them, and then to pass them through 
a rag machine. This consists of a cylinder, with steel 
teeth, half an inch apart from each other, and standing 


CLOTH PRINTING. 


329 


out from each other. This cylinder revolves five hundred 
times in a minute, and the rags, drawn in, through an 
arrangement of rollers, are brought close to the surface of 
the revolving cylinder, and by the action of the steel teeth 
are completely torn into wool. Half a ton of rags can in 
this way be pulled up in ten hours. The best varieties of 
the white w T ool so produced, are worked up into blankets, 
or light-colored goods, while the dark-colored wool is 
worked into all kinds of coarse cloths, carpets, etc., which 
are dyed any dark color, so as to hide the various colors 
of the old fabrics. It is also mixed with new wool, in such 
proportions as its quality will admit without deteriorating 
the sale of the material. The wool produced by pulling up 
the broadcloth rags, is used in nearly all the Yorkshire 
superfine cloths, and some very extensively. It produces 
a cloth somewhat inferior to the best broadcloth, in dura¬ 
bility, but for finish and appearance, when first made up, 
it is nearly equal. This business of working up old woolen 
rags, has now become in England one of great extent and 
importance. It is generally known as the Dewsbury trade, 
as the town of Dewsbury has by means of it grown from a 
little village to a city of 30,000 inhabitants, and immense 
fortunes have been made by this extraordinary transforma¬ 
tion of old garments into new. 

Having thus noticed the leading processes of the manu¬ 
facture of cotton, of wool, of silk, of linen, we may conclude 
this chapter wfith a brief mention of the art that gives to 
many of the fabrics produced their chief beauty—the art of 
printing cloth in colors. This art applies to the finest as 
well as the commonest productions of the loom; and the 
science of the dyer, the beauty of his patterns, and the per¬ 
fection of his machinery, have now given us great eminence 
in this department of industry. 

There is a striking, although natural parallel, between 


330 


CLOTH PRINTING. 


printing a piece of cloth and printing a sheet of a book, or 
a newspaper. Block-printing is the impress of the pattern 
by hand; as block-books were made four centuries ago. 
We have no block-books now; for machinery has banished 
that tedious process. But block-printing is used for costly 
shawls and velvets, which require to have many colors pro¬ 
duced by repeated impress from a large number of blocks, 
each carrying a different color. Except for expensive fab¬ 
rics, this mode is superseded by block-printing with a sort 
of press, in which several blocks are set in a frame. Here, 
again, is somewhat of a similarity to the operation of the 
book-press. Lastly, we have cylinder-printing, resembling 
the rapid working of the book-printing machine, each pro¬ 
ducing the same cheapness. As the pattern has to be ob¬ 
tained from several cylinders, each having its own color, 
there is great nicety in the operation ; and the most beauti¬ 
ful mechanism is necessary for feeding the cylinder with 
color; moving the cloth to meet the revolving cylinder; 
and giving to the cylinder its power of impression. But 
those who witness the operation see little of the ultimate 
effect to be obtained in the subsequent processes of dyeing. 
Fast colors are produced by the use in the pattern of sub¬ 
stances called mordants; which may be colorless themselves 
but receive the color of the dye-bath, which color is only 
fixed in the parts touched by the mordant, and is washed 
out from the parts not touched. When what is called a 
substantive color is at once impressed upon the white cloth, 
much of the beauty is also derived from subsequent pro¬ 
cesses. The chemist, the machinist, the designer, and the 
engraver—science and art—set the calico-printing works in 
activity; and the carrying on these complicated processes 
can only be profitably done upon a large scale. No direct 
enumeration can be made of the employments that are re¬ 
quired merely to produce the dyes with which the calico- 


CLOTH PRINTING. 


331 


printer works. The mineral and vegetable kingdoms, and 
even the animal kingdom, combine their natural productions 
in the colors of a lady’s dress. The sulphur-miner of Sicily, 
the salt-worker of Austria or Turk’s Island, the hewer of 
wood in the Brazils, the Negro in the indigo plantations of 
the East and West Indies, the cultivator of madder in 
France, and the gatherer of the cochineal insect in Mexico, 
are all laborers for the calico print-works. The discoveries 
of science, in combination with the experience of practice, 
has set all this industry in motion, and has given a value to 
innumerable productions of nature which would otherwise 
be useless and unemployed. But these demands of manu¬ 
factures do more; they create modes of cultivation which 
are important sources of national prosperity. Jean Althen, 
a Persian of great family, bred up in every luxury, became 
a slave in Anatolia, when Kouli-Khan overthrew the Per¬ 
sian empire. For fourteen years he worked in the cotton 
and madder-fields. He then escaped to France, carrying 
with him some madder-seeds. Long did he labor in vain to 
attract the attention of the government of Louis XV. to his 
plans. At length, having spent all the fortune which he 
had acquired by marriage with a French heiress, he ob¬ 
tained the patronage of the Marquis de Caumont, in his at¬ 
tempts to introduce the cultivation of madder into the 
department of Vaucluse. His life was closing in compara¬ 
tive indigence when a new branch of industry was developed 
in his adopted country. The district in which he created a 
new industry has increased a hundred fold in value. The 
debt of gratitude was paid by a tablet to his memory, 
erected sixty years after he was insensible to human re¬ 
wards. We starve our benefactors when they are living, 
and satisfy our consciences by votive monuments. Althen’s 
daughter died as poor as her father. The tablet was erected 
at Avignon when the family was extinct. 


332 


BLEACHING. 


There is a process connected with the production of 
clothing which we must briefly refer to, as one of the 
signal examples of the axiom of our title—“ Knowledge is 
Power.” 

Let us suppose that chemistry had not discovered and 
organized the modes in which bleaching is performed ; and 
that the thousands of millions of yards of cloth which we 
weave in this country had still to be bleached as bleaching 
was accomplished in the last century. All linens were then 
sent from England and other parts of Europe to Holland to 
be bleached.* The Dutch steeped the bundles of cloth in 
ley made by water poured upon wood-ashes—then soaked 
them in buttermilk—and finally spread them upon the grass 
for several months. These were all natural agencies which 
discharged the coloring matter without any chemical 
science. It was at length found out that sulphuric acid 
would do the same work in one day which the buttermilk 
did in six weeks; but the sun and the air had still to be the 
chief bleaching powers. A French chemist then found out 
that a new gas, chlorine, would supersede the necessity for 
spreading out the linen for several months: and so the 

e It may not be foreign to our subject to correct at this point an error 
which has been widely extended, and found credence with many persons, 
viz.: that which ascribes to Holland the manufacture of the nicer varieties 
of linen. The facts are these: During the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries almost all the linen goods manufactured in Europe were sent to 
Haarlem, in Holland, to be bleached, and the bleaching of this place 
was regarded as an indispensible compliment of all high-priced linens. 
These goods for the most part passed into the hands of the Dutch, who, 
after they had given them “ Blanc de Haarlem ,” sold them as the manu¬ 
factured products of Holland. In the latter part of the eighteenth centu¬ 
ry, other manufacturers found out the secret of bleaching, and ceased 
to transport their goods to Holland. The imprint, however, of the Dutch, 
had become so famous, that its use is continued even to the present day, 
to designate particular linen fabrics. 


BLEACHING. 


333 


acres of bleaching-ground which were then used in England 
and Scotland—for the practice of sending the brown and 
yellow cloth to Holland had been discontinued—were free 
for cultivation. But the chlorine was poisonous to the 
workmen, and imparted a filthy odor to the cloth. Chem¬ 
istry again went to work, and finally obtained the chlorid 
of lime, which is the universal bleaching powder of modern 
manufactures. What used to be the work of eight months 
is now accomplished in an hour or two; and so a bag of 
dingy raw cotton may be in Alabama on the first day of 
the month, and be converted into the whitest calico before 
the month is at an end. 


CHAPTER XX. 


HOSIERY MANUFACTURE.—THE STOCKING-FRAME.—THE CIRCULAR HOSIERY-MACHINE 
HATS.—GLOVES.—FANS.—LACE MANUFACTURE.—BOBBINET-MACHINE.—PIN-MAK¬ 
ING.—NEEDLES.—BUTTONS.—TOYS.—MATCHES.—ENVELOPS. 


Before the invention of the first stocking-machine, in 
the year 1589, by William Lee, an English clergyman, none 
but the very rich wore stockings, and many of the most 
wealthy went without stockings at all, that part of dress 
being sewn together by the tailor, or their legs being cov¬ 
ered with bandages of cloth. The covering for the leg was 
called a “ nether-stock,” or lower stocking. Philip Stubbes, 
a tremendous puritanical declaimer against every species of 
luxury, thus describes the expensive stockings of his time, 
1585 : 

“ Then have they nether-stocks to these hosen, not of 
cloth (though never so fine), for that is thought too base, 
but of jarnsey, worsted, ere well, silk, thread, and such like, 
or else at the least of the finest yarn that can be got, and so 
curiously knit with open seam down the leg, with quirks 
and clocks about the ancles, and sometime, haply, interlaced 
with gold or silver threads, as is wonderful to behold. And 
to such impudent insolency and shameful outrage it is now 
grown, that every one, almost, though otherwise very poor, 
having scarce forty shillings of wages by the year, will not 
stick to have two or three pair of these silk nether-stocks, 
or else of the finest yarn that may be got, though the price 
of them be a ryall, or twenty shillings, or more, as com- 


HOSIERY MANUFACTURE. 


335 


monly it is; for how can they he less, when as the very 
knitting of them is worth a noble or a ryall, and some much 
more ? The time hath been when one might have clothed 
his body well for less than a pair of these nether-stocks will 
cost.” 

It is difficult to understand how those who had only forty 
shillings a year wages could expend twenty shillings upon a 
pair of knit stockings. But it is quite clear they were for 
the rich only; and that very few persons were employed in 
knitting and embroidering stockings. 

William Lee struggled to make stockings cheap. He 
made a pair of stockings by the frame, in the presence of 
King James I.; but such was the prejudice of those times, 
that he could get no encouragement for his invention. His 
invention was discountenanced, upon the plea that it would 
deprive the industrious poor of their substance. He went 
to France, where he met with no better success, and died at 
last of a broken heart. The great then could discountenance 
an invention, because its application was limited to them¬ 
selves. They only wore stockings: the poor who made 
them had none to wear. Stockings were not cheap enough 
for the poor to wear, and therefore they went without. Of 
the millions of people now in this country, how few are 
without stockings! What a miserable exception to the 
comfort of the rest of the people does it appear when we 
see a beggar in the streets without stockings! We con¬ 
sider such a person to be in the lowest stage of want and 
suffering. Two centuries ago, not one person in a thousand 
wore stockings; one century ago, not one person in five 
hundred wore them; now, not one person in a thousand is 
without them. Who made this great change in the condi¬ 
tion of the people of almost all civilized countries? Wil¬ 
liam Lee—who died at Paris of a broken heart. And why 
did he die of grief and penury ? Because the people of his 


336 


HOSIERY MANUFACTURE. 


own days were too ignorant to accept the blessings he had 
prepared for them. 

We ask with confidence, had the terror of the stocking- 
frame any real foundation? Were any people thrown out 
of employment by the stocking-frame ? 

“ The knitters in the sun, 

And the free maids who weave their thread with bones,” 

as Shakspeare describes the country lasses of his day, had 
to change their employment; but there was far more em¬ 
ployment for the makers of stockings, for then every one 
began to wear stockings. 

The hosiery manufacture furnishes employment to many 
persons besides those that work at the stocking-machine. 
The frame-worker, in many cases, makes the knit-work in 
a piece adapted for a stocking, and does not make a finished 
stocking; the seamer makes the stocking out of the piece 
so produced. When we speak of the stocking-frame, we 
speak of a machine which knits every article of hosiery. 
In this manufacture there were employed, in 1851, in Great 
Britain, sixty-five thousand five hundred persons, of whom 
thirty thousand were females. 

Suppose that the ignorance and prejudice which prevailed 
at the time of James I. upon the subject of machinery had 
continued to the present day; and that not only the first 
stocking-frame of William Lee had never been used, but 
that all machines employed in the manufacture of hosiery 
had never been thought of; and they could not have been 
thought of if the first machines had been put down. The 
greater number of us, in that case, would have been with¬ 
out stockings. 

But there would have been a greater evil than even this. 
We might all have found substitutes for stockings, or have 
gone without them. But the progress of ingenuity would 


HOSIERY MANUFACTURE. 


337 


have been stopped. The inventive principle would have 
been destroyed. 

We have not reached the end of our career of improve¬ 
ment. Civilization is not destined to run a backward race. 
William Lee’s stocking-frame worked well for two centuries 
and a half. One of the most beautiful contrivances of our 
time has now greatly superseded it. The circular hosiery 
machine—more properly called a machine for manufacturing 
“looped fabrics”—works at such a rate that one girl at¬ 
tending upon the revolutions of this wonderful instrument 
can produce in one day the material for two hundred and 
forty pairs of stockings. She turns a little handle, with the 
ease with which she would turn a barrel-organ ; and, as the 
machine revolves, hundreds of needles catch the thread 
and loop it into the chain which forms the stocking-cloth, 
or it makes the fashioned stocking. 

As the nether-stocks of our English ancestors were for the 
great and wealthy, so were their hats. Old Stubbs writes, 
“ Sometimes they use them sharp on the crown, pearking 
up like the spear or shaft of a steeple, standing a quarter 
of a yard above the crown of their heads, some more, some 
less, as please the fantasies of their inconstant minds. 
Other some be flat and broad on the crown, like the battle¬ 
ments of a house. Another sort have round crowns, some¬ 
times with one kind of band, sometimes with another, now 
black, now white, now russet, now red, now green, now 
yellow, now this, now that, never content with one color 
or fashion two days to an end. And thus in vanity they 
spend the Lord his treasure, consuming their golden years 
and silver days in wickedness and sin. And as the fashions 
be rare and strange, so is the stuff whereof their hats be 
made divers also; for some are of silk, some of velvet, 
some of taffeta, some of sarsanet, some of wool, and, which 
js more curious, some of a certain kind of fine hair ; these 

15 


338 


HATS AND GLOVES. 


they call beaver hats, of twenty, thirty, or forty shillings 
price, fetched from beyond the seas, from whence a great 
sort of other vanities do come besides.” Here, then, we see 
that the beaver hat was in those days an article of great 
price. The commonalty had their “ plain statute caps” of 
wool. In our time the beaver hat was the common wear 
of the middle classes until the last few years, when the 
cheaper silk hat became almost universal. Hats have, there¬ 
fore, become intimately associated with the material plush, 
produced by the loom. 

The manufacture of gloves is connected, in a very large 
department, with the hosiery manufactory. The use of 
thread gloves and cotton gloves has had the effect, in some 
degree, of lessening the consumption of leather gloves. The 
importation of leather gloves and mitts was prohibited into 
Great Britain until 1825. She now imports three million 
pairs annually; and the home manufacture, instead of being 
ruined, as was predicted, was never so prosperous. The 
French gloves, once so superior, have improved the English 
by the natural force of competition ; and the English manu¬ 
facturers not only purchase better leather than formerly, 
but the cottage-workwomen that labor in the glove districts 
have become neater and more careful sewers. The con¬ 
sumption of gloves has ceased to be exclusively for the rich. 
The perfumed and embroidered glove of the sixteenth cen¬ 
tury is no longer required. The use of gloves has become 
universal among both sexes of the middle classes. The fe¬ 
male domestic would think it unbecoming to go to church 
without her gloves; and the well-dressed artizan holds it 
nothing effeminate to use a covering for his hands, which 
his forefathers thought a distinguishing appurtenance of the 
high-born and luxurious. 

Fan-making in France is a large branch of manufacture. 
In the Jury Report on the Exhibition of Industry in 1851, 


FAN-MAKING. 


339 


there is a notice of the fan-trade of Paris, which is curious 
as showing the joint influences upon cheapness of ma¬ 
chinery, and of the multiplication of works of art by en¬ 
graving. The fan-makers of Paris in 1847 employed five 
hundred and seventy-five workpeople—the number of the 
sexes being pretty equally divided. “ The men, were for 
the most part, copper-plate engravers and printers, litho¬ 
graphic draughtsmen and printers, painters, and colorers ; 
the women were mounters, illuminators, painters, colorers, 
and overlookers. In twenty years it appears that the 
produce in fans had increased in value nearly threefold, 
while the number of workpeople had diminished one half. 
This change is attributed to the employment of machinery, 
especially of the fly press, in stamping out and embossing 
the ribs, and the extensive employment of chromo-lithog¬ 
raphy, an art not practiced at the former period. By these 
means the French have been enabled greatly to increase 
their exports by the production of cheap fans, to compete 
with those made by the Chinese.” 

Dekker, in his “Gull’s Hornbook,” printed in 1609, 
advises the gallant of his day to exhibit a “ wrought hand¬ 
kerchief.” A “handkerchief, spotted with strawberries,” 
was Othello’s first gift to DescLemona. It was an embroid¬ 
ered handkerchief, such as is produced in the present day 
at Cairo by the Egyptian ladies in their private apartments. 
The embroidered shirts of the time of Elizabeth are thus 
noticed by Stubbes: 

“ These shirts (sometimes it happeneth) are wrought 
throughout with needle-work of silk, and such like, and 
curiously stitched with open seam, and many other knacks 
besides, more than I can describe; in so much as I have 
heard of shirts that have cost some ten shillings, some 
twenty, some forty, some five pound, some twenty nobles, 
and (which is horrible to hear) some ten pound apiece.” 


340 


LACE MANUFACTURE. 


The embroidery-frame was in time superseded by the 
lace-pillow, which is stated to have been first used in 
Saxony in the sixteenth century. 

The laces of France form a history of their own, as well 
they should, 200,000 women gaining employment by their 
manufacture. They are all hand-made—that is, with bob¬ 
bins, upon a small, portable cushion—except at Alencon, 
where the needle is employed, and the work done on 
parchment. The different appellations given to them are 
derived from the district in which they are made—Ba- 
yeux, Chantilly, Lille, Arras, Mirecourt, Du Pay, Boilleul, 
Alencon; and although made in the same way, they are 
instantly recognized by the peculiar style of the district. 
The berthes and coiffures of point d’Alencon, collars of 
guipure and point a l’aiguille, have the most delicate and 
graceful patterns, and are of the finest possible web. The 
point d’Alencon is worked entirely with the needle, and 
is the only lace made now in France of pure linen thread 
—the thread being worth from lOOf. to 120f. per pound. 
It is the richest, the finest of all, and the strongest, and 
consequently its price is the highest. It is a lace of very 
ancient date, having been introduced into France by Vene¬ 
tian workmen, in 1660, and is different from other laces— 
for, while in other fabrics only one worker is required to 
make the richest piece, the Alencon requires from fourteen 
to sixteen different workers for the smallest size—even a 
quarter of a yard, and the most simple pattern. 

Until the present century no lace was heard of but 
pillow-lace—a domestic manufacture, of which Honiton, 
England, was the most famous seat. A stocking-weaver 
of Great Britain adapted his stocking-frame to the making 
of lace about 1770; and the bobbin-frame was invented in 
1809. It was never extensively used till the expiration of 
the patent; and the produce of this machine was kept 


BOBBINET MACHINE. 


341 


at so high a price by the patentees that it interfered 
little with the labor of the lace-makers in the cottages of 
England. 

But a time was coming when as much bobbinet as the 
patentees of the first frame charged twenty dollars for 
would be sold for fifty cents; and when, as a necessary con- 
quence of this cheapness, lace-making as a domestic em¬ 
ployment would wholly cease, or be confined to the pro¬ 
duction of an expensive article, supposed to be superior to 
machine-made lace. That the old hand-labor could com¬ 
pete with the machine was an impossibility. Lace of an 
ordinary figured pattern used to be made on the pillow at 
the rate of about three meshes per minute. A bobbinet 
machine will produce similar lace at the rate of twenty- 
four thousand meshes per minute, one person only being 
required to wait upon the machine. Those who have 
watched the pottage lace-maker, working with her bob¬ 
bins and pins, were unable, without long observation, to 
understand the principle upon which she intertwined the 
threads. But to explain the more rapid working of the 
bobbinet machine would require such a minute acquaint¬ 
ance with all its parts as belongs to the business of the 
practical machinist, and which words are inadequate to 
exhibit. 

Instead of England being now supplied with lace from 
France and Belgium, she is now an exporting lace-country. 
In 1848 she exported cotton lace and net to the amount of 
£363,255; in 1853 to the amount of £596,578. 

There is an article employed in dress which is at once so 
necessary and so beautiful that the highest lady in the land 
uses it, and yet so cheap that the poorest laborer’s wife is 
enabled to procure it. The quality of the article is as per¬ 
fect as art can make it; and yet, from the enormous quan¬ 
tities consumed by the great mass of the people, it is made 


342 


PIN-MAKING. 


so cheap that the poor can purchase the best kind, as well 
as the rich. It is an article of universal use. United with 
machinery, many hundreds, and even thousands are em¬ 
ployed in making it. But if the machinery were to stop, 
and the article were made by human hands alone, it would 
become so dear that the richest only could afford to use it; 
and it would become at the same time so rough in its ap¬ 
pearance that those very rich would be ashamed of using it. 
The article we mean is a pin. 

It is not necessary for us to describe* the machinery used 
in pin-making, to make the reader comprehend its effects. 
A pin is made of brass. We have seen how metal is ob¬ 
tained from ore by machinery, and, therefore, we will not 
go over that ground. But suppose the most skillful work¬ 
man has a lump of brass ready by his side, to make it into 
pins with common tools—with a hammer and with a file. 
He beats it upon an anvil, till it becomes nearly thin 
enough for his purpose. A very fine hammer, and a very 
fine touch must he have to produce a pin of any sort— 
even a large coarse pin ! But the pin made by machinery 
is a perfect cylinder. To make a metal, or even a wooden 
cylinder of a considerable size, with files and polishing, is 
an operation so difficult that it is never attempted; but 
with a lathe and a sliding rest it is done every hour by a 
great many workmen. How much more difficult would it 
be to make a perfect cylinder the size of a pin ? A pin 
hammered out by hand would present a number of rough 
edges that would tear the clothes,' as well as hold them 
together. It would not be much more useful or ornamental 
than the skewer of bone with which the woman of the 
Sandwich Islands fastens her mats. But the wire of which 
pins are made acquires a perfect cylindrical form by the 
simplest machinery. It is forcibly drawn through the cir¬ 
cular holes of a steel plate ; and the hole being smaller and 


PIN-MAKING. 


343 


smaller each time it is drawn through, it is at length re¬ 
duced to the size required. 

In England and Europe at the present time, the head of 
a pin is formed of a small piece of wire twisted round, so as 
to fit upon the other wire which constitutes the body of the 
pin. The cutting and pointing of the pins are also the re¬ 
sult of separate operations; but in the United States, ma¬ 
chines have been invented which stamp the head at once 
from the same piece of wire which constitutes the body of 
the pin, at the same time cutting and polishing the points. 
Invention has not, however, rested here in the operation of 
pin-making, and machines have been contrived by which 
the pins are stuck into papers and folded up, an equal number 
being arranged with mathematical accuracy in each paper. 

It is by these processes—by these combinations of human 
labor with mechanical power—that it occurs that a paper 
of pins can be bought for a few cents, and that, therefore, 
four or five thousand pins may be consumed in a year by 
the most economical housewife, at a much less price than 
fifty pins of a rude make cost two or three centuries ago. 
A woman’s allowance was formerly called her pin-money —a 
proof that the pins were a sufficiently dear article to make 
a large item in her expenses. If pins were now to cost a 
cent apiece, instead of being fifty for a cent, the greater 
number of females would adopt other modes of fastening 
their dress, which would probably be less neat and conve¬ 
nient than pins. Uo such circumstance could happen while 
the machinery of pin-making was in use. 

Needles are not so cheap as pins, because the material of 
which they are made is more expensive, and the processes 
can not be executed so fully by machinery. But without 
machinery how could that most beautiful article, a fine 
needle , be sold at the rate of three for a cent. 

As in the case of pins, machinery is at work at the first 


344 


NEEDLE-MAKING. 


formation of the material. Without the tilt-hammer, which 
beats out the bar of steel, first at the rate of ten strokes a 
minute, and lastly at that of five hundred, how could that 
bar be prepared for needle-making at any thing like a rea¬ 
sonable price ? In all the processes of needle-making, labor 
is saved by contrivance and machinery. What human 
touch, without a machine would be accurate enough to 
make the eye of the finest needle, through which the most 
delicate silk is with difficulty passed ? There are two 
needles to be formed out of one piece of wire; in the 
previous preparation of which the eyes are marked. The 
workman, holding in his hand several wires, drops one at a 
time on the bed-iron of the machine, adjusts it to the die, 
brings down the upper die upon it by the action of the 
foot, and allows it to fall into a little dish when done. This 
he does with such rapidity that one stamper can stamp 
four thousand wires, equivalent to eight thousand needles in 
an hour. 

Needles are made in such large quantities, that it is even 
important to save the time of the child who lays them all 
one way when they are completed. Mr. Babbage, of En¬ 
gland, who is equally distinguished for his profound science 
and his mechanical ingenuity, has described this process as 
an example of one of the simplest contrivances which can 
come under the denomination of a tool. u It is necessary 
to separate the needles into two parcels, in order that their 
points may be all in one direction. This is usually done by 
women and children. The needles are placed sideways in 
a heap, on a table, in front of each operator. From five to 
ten are rolled toward this person by the forefinger of the 
left hand; this separates them a very small space from each 
other, and each in its turn is pushed lengthways to the right 
or to the left, according as its eye is on the right or the left 
hand. This is the usual process, and in it every needle 


NEEDLE-MAKING. 


345 


passes individually under the finger of the operator. A 
small alteration expedites the process considerably ; the 
child puts on the forefinger of its right hand a small cloth 
cap or finger-stall, and rolling from the heap from six tc 
twelve needles, it keeps them down by the forefinger of 
the left hand; while it presses the forefinger of the right 
hand gently against the ends of the needles, those which 
have their points toward the right hand stick into the 
finger-stall; and the child, removing the finger of the left 
hand, allows the needles sticking into the cloth to be 
slightly raised, and then pushes them toward the left side. 
Those needles which had their eyes on the right hand do 
not stick into the finger-cover, and are pushed to the heap 
on the right side previous to the repetition of the process. 
By means of this simple contrivance, each movement of the 
finger, from one side to the other, carries five or six needles 
to their proper heap; whereas, in the former method, fre¬ 
quently only one was moved, and rarely more than two or 
three were transported at one movement to their place.” 

A large number of people are employed in the manufac¬ 
ture of buttons. In the manufacture of a single button 
there is great division of labor among piercers, cutters, 
stampers, gilders, and burnishers. The shank of a button 
is made by very complicated machinery as a distinct class 
of manufacture, and the button-makers buy the shanks. It 
has been stated that three firms in Birmingham, England, 
annually make six hundred million button-shanks. 

The application of machinery, or of peculiar scientific 
modes of working, to such apparently trifling articles as 
pins, needles, buttons, and trinkets, may appear of little 
importance. But let it be remembered, that the manufac¬ 
ture of such articles furnishes employment to many thou¬ 
sands of our fellow-countrymen ; and, enabling us to supply 
other nations with these products, affords us the means of 

15 * 


346 


BUTTON MANUFACTURE. 


receiving articles of more intrinsic value in exchange. In 
1853, the English exports of hardware and cutlery amounted 
to more than three millions and a half sterling. No article 
of* ready attainment, and therefore of general consumption, 
whether it he a laborer’s spade or a child’s marble, is un¬ 
important in a commercial point of view. The wooden 
figures of horses and sheep that may he bought for a few 
cents in the toy-shops furnish employment to cut them, 
during the long winter nights, to a large portion of the 
peasantry of the Tyrol. The Swiss peasant cuts a piece of 
white wood into a hoy or a cottage, as he is tending his 
herd on the side of a mountain. These become considerable 
articles of export. In the town of Sonneberg, near the 
forest of Thuringia, Germany, four thousand inhabitants are 
principally employed in the toy-trade, and also find employ¬ 
ment for the neighboring villagers. Mr. Osier, an English 
manufacturer of Birmingham, some years ago, addressing a 
Committee of the House of Commons upon the subject of 
his beads and trinkets, said—“ On my first journey to Lon¬ 
don, a respectable-looking man in the city asked me if I 
could supply him with dolls’ eyes; and I was foolish enough 
to feel half offended. I thought it derogatory to my new 
dignity as a manufacturer to make dolls’ eyes. He took me 
into a room quite as wide and perhaps twice the length of 
this room (one of the large rooms for Committees in the 
House of Commons), and we had just room to walk between 
stacks, from the floor to the ceiling, of parts of dolls. He 
said, ‘ These are' only the legs and arms—the trunks are 
below.’ But I saw enough to convince me that he wanted 
a great many eyes; and as the article appeared quite in my 
own line of business, I said I would take an order by way 
of experiment; and he showed me several specimens. I 
copied the order. He ordered various quantities and of 
various sizes and qualities. On returning to my hotel, I 


MATCHES. 


347 


found that the order amounted to upward of two thousand 
dollars. 

Mr. Osier tells this story to show the importance of trifles. 
The making of dolls’ eyes afforded subsistence to many in¬ 
genious workmen in glass toys; and in the same way the 
most minute and apparently insignificant article of general 
use, when rendered cheap by chemical science or machinery, 
produces a return of many thousand pounds, and sets in mo¬ 
tion labor and laborers. Without the science and the ma¬ 
chinery, which render the article cheap, the laborers would 
have had no employ, for the article would not have been 
consumed. What a pretty article is a common tobacco- 
pipe, of which millions are used! It is made cheap and 
beautiful in a mold—a machine for copying pipes. If the 
pipe were made without the mold, and other contrivances, 
it would cost at least a shilling instead of a cent: the tobac¬ 
co-smoker would go without his pipe, and the pipe-maker 
without his employment. 

Among articles of great demand that have become of im¬ 
portance, though apparently insignificant, in our own day, 
there is nothing more worthy of notice than the Friction or 
Lucifer Match. About twenty years ago chemistry abol¬ 
ished the tinder-box; and the burnt rag that made the 
tinder went to make paper. Slowly did the invention 
spread. The use of the match is now so established that 
machines are invented to prepare the splints. In New 
York, one match manufactory annually cuts up a large raft 
of timber for matches. The English matches are generally 
square, and thus thirty thousand splints are cut in a minute. 
The American matches are round ; and the process of shap¬ 
ing being more elaborate, four thousand five hundred splints 
are cut in a minute. We will follow a bundle of eighteen 
hundred of thin splints, each four inches long, through its 
conversion into three thousand six hundred matches. 


348 


MATCHES. 


Without being separated, each end of the bundle is first 
dipped into sulphur. When dry, the splints, adhering to 
each other by means of the sulphur, must be parted by 
what is called dusting. A boy, sitting on the floor with a 
bundle before him, strikes the matches with a sort of mallet 
on the dipped ends till they become thoroughly loosened. 
They have now to be plunged into a preparation of phos¬ 
phorus or chlorate of potash, according to the quality of the 
match. The phosphorus produces the pale, noiseless fire; 
the chlorate of potash the sharp crackling illumination. 
After this application of the more inflammable substance, 
the matches are separated, and dried in racks. Thoroughly 
dried, they are gathered up again into bundles of the same 
quantity, and are taken to the boys who cut them; for the 
reader will have observed that the bundles have been dipped 
at each end. There are few things more remarkable in man¬ 
ufactures than the extraordinary rapidity of this cutting 
process and that which is connected with it. The boy 
stands before a bench, the bundle on his right hand, a pile 
of empty boxes on his left. The matches are to be cut, and 
the empty boxes filled, by this boy. A bundle is opened ; 
he seizes a portion, knowing by long habit the required 
number with sufficient exactness; puts- them rapidly into a 
sort of frame, knocks the ends evenly together, confines 
them with a strap which he tightens with his foot, and cuts 
them in two parts with a knife on a hinge, which he brings 
down with a strong leverage. The halves lie projecting 
over each end of the frame; he grasps the left portion and 
thrusts it into a half open box, which slides into an outer 
case; and he repeats the process with the matches on his 
right hand. This series of movements is performed with a 
rapidity almost unexampled; for in this way, two hundred 
thousand matches are cut, and two thousand boxes filled in 
a day, by one boy. 


ENVELOP MACHINE. 


349 


It is a law of this manufacture that the demand is greater 
in the summer than in the winter. The increased summer 
demand for the matches shows that the great consumption 
is among the masses—the laboring population—those who 
make up the vast majority of the contributors to duties of 
customs and excise. In the houses of the wealthy there is 
always fire; in the houses of the poor, fire in summer is a ' 
needless hourly expense. Then comes the match to supply 
the want—to fight the afternoon fire to boil the kettle. It 
is now unnecessary to run to the neighbor for a fight, or, as 
a desperate resource, to work at the tinder-box. The 
matches sometimes fail, but they cost little, and so they are 
freely used, even by the poorest. Their value was suffi¬ 
ciently shown when an English officer in camp at Sebastopol 
recently wrote home that no want was greater than that of 
the ready means of procuring fire and fight, and that he 
should hold a box of matches cheap at half a crown. 

We may notice one other article of almost universal use, 
which is of very recent introduction—the envelop. It is a 
labor-saving contrivance for the writer of letters. The use 
of the envelop has been mainly created by cheap postage. 

A machine has been invented for their manufacture, which 
is able to produce twenty-five thousand envelops in a single 


CHAPTER XXI. 


LABOR-SAVING CONTRIVANCES.—THE NICK IN TYPES.—CASTING SHOT.—CANDLE-DIP¬ 
PING.—TIRING A WHEEL.—GLOBE-MAKING.—DOMESTIC AIDS TO LABOR.—AIDS TO 
MENTAL LABOR.—EFFECTS OF SEVERE BODILY LABOR ON HEALTH AND DURATION 
OF LIFE. 

We drew attention in the last chapter to a particular 
process in needle-making—the sorter’s sheath—to show that 
great saving of labor may be effected by what is not popu¬ 
larly called machinery. In modern times, wherever work 
is carried on upon a large scale, the division of labor is ap¬ 
plied ; by which one man attending to one thing learns to 
perform that one thing more perfectly than if he had at¬ 
tended to many things. He thus saves a considerable por¬ 
tion of the whole amount of labor. Every skillful workman 
has individually some mode of working peculiar to himself, 
by which he lessens his labor. An expert blacksmith, for 
instance, will not strike one more blow upon the anvil than 
is necessary to produce the effect he desires. A composi¬ 
tor, or printer who arranges the types, is a swift workman 
when he makes no unnecessary movement of his arms or 
fingers in lifting a single type into what is called his compos¬ 
ing-stick, where the types are arranged in lines. There is a 
very simple contrivance to lessen the labor of the composi¬ 
tor, by preventing him putting the type into his composing- 
stick the wrong side outward. It is a nick, or two, or three 
nicks, on the side of the type which corresponds with the 
lower side of the face of the letter. By this nick or nicks 
he is enabled to see by one glance of his eye on which side 


THE NICK IN TYPES.-SHOT-CASTING. 


351 


the letter is first to be grasped, and then to be arranged. 
If the nick were not there he would have to look at the face 
of every letter before he could properly place it. This is a 
labor-saving contrivance; and if the labor were not thus 
saved, two compositors would certainly be required to do 
the work of one; and the natural and inevitable effect 
would be that, as the funds for the payment of the compos¬ 
itor’s labors would not be increased, the wages of each com¬ 
positor would be diminished by one half. The new labor 
that would be required would enter into competition with 
the old labor, and depreciate its value, because each indi¬ 
vidual laborer had lost one half of his efficiency. 

Contrivances to economize labor, such as that of the 
needle-sorter’s sheath, and the nicks in the type of the com¬ 
positor, are constantly occurring in manufactures. 

If the small shot which is used by sportsmen were each 
cast in a mold, the price would be enormous; but by pour¬ 
ing the melted lead, of which the shot is made, through a 
sort of cullender, placed at the top of a tower, high enough 
for the lead to cool in its passage through the air, before it 
reaches the ground, the shot is formed in a spherical or 
round shape by the mere act of passing through the atmos¬ 
phere. Some of the shot thus formed are not perfectly 
spherical—they are pear-shaped. If the selection of the per¬ 
fect from the imperfect shots were made by the eye, or the 
touch, the process would be very tedious and insufficient, 
and the price of the article much increased. The simplest 
contrivance in the world divides the bad from the good. 
The shots are poured down an inclined plane, and, without 
any trouble of selection, the spherical ones run straight to 
the bottom, while the pear-shaped ones tumble off on one 
side or the other of the plane. 

As the construction of lofty towers for the manufacture 
of shot is attended with great expense, a plan has recently 


352 


SHOT-CASTING.-CANDLE-DIPPING. 


been devised by which they may be dispensed with, and 
consequently the cost of production lessened. The liquid 
molten lead is made to descend through an upright cir¬ 
cular pipe, arranged over a reservoir of water, and near 
the bottom is a fan-wheel, which produces a constant cur¬ 
rent of air that meets the lead in its descent, and while it 
tends to decrease the rapidity of its fall in some degree, it 
also abstracts sufficient caloric to solidify the shot effectu¬ 
ally. The upward blast of air also tends to cause the par¬ 
ticles of lead to assume a perfectly spherical form. 

In speaking of such contrivances we are constantly pass¬ 
ing over the narrow line which separates them from what 
we popularly term machinery. Let us take an example of 
the readiness with which a small aid to manual labor grad¬ 
ually becomes perfected into a machine, requiring little 
impulse from human action. The dippers of candles have 
gradually, in small establishments, made several improve¬ 
ments in their art for. the purpose of diminishing labor. 
They used to hold the rods between their fingers, dipping 
three at a time; they next connected six or eight rods 
together by a piece of wood at each end, having holes 
to receive the rods; and they now suspend the rods so 
arranged upon a sort of balance, rising and falling with a 
pulley and a weight, so as to relieve the arms of the work¬ 
man almost entirely, while the work is done more quickly 
and with more precision. But ill large candle-factories the 
principle is carried much further. The wicks, having been 
cut by machinery of the requisite length, instead of being 
cut one at a time, are arranged upon a rod. For the sort 
of candle called “ twelves,” or twelve to a pound, twenty- 
four wicks are suspended on one of these rods. Thirty 
rods are connected together in a frame, which thus holds 
seven hundred and twenty wicks. Attached to the ma¬ 
chine are thirty-six of these frames. The whole number of 


TIRING A WHEEL.-GLOBE-MAKING. 


353 


wicks is therefore twenty-five thousand nine hundred and 
twenty. The machine, as it revolves, dips one frame into 
a vessel of melted tallow; and so on till the thirty-six 
frames have been once dipped—and the process is con¬ 
tinued till the candles are fully formed. One man and a 
boy complete this number of candles in a working-day of 
ten hours. 

Walking by a wheelwright’s shop in some quiet village, 
did our readers ever see the operation of “ tiring” a wheel ? 
The wood-work of the wheel is entirely formed; but the 
joints of the felloes are imperfectly fitted together. They 
used to be drawn close by separate straps of iron applied 
with great labor. The wheel rests upon some raised bricks. 
Out from the forge rush three or four men bearing a red- 
hot iron hoop. It is laid upon the outer rim of the wood¬ 
work, burning its way as it is hammered down with the 
united force of the wheelwrights. When it is nearly fitted, 
floods of water are thrown upon it, till it no longer burns. 
The knowledge of the simple fact that the iron shrinks as 
it cools, and thus knits the whole wheel into a firm body, 
taught the wheelwright how to accomplish the difficult 
task of giving the last strength to his wheel with the least 
possible labor. 

The manufacture of a globe offers an example of the pro¬ 
duction of a most beautiful piece of work by the often 
repeated application of a series of processes, each requiring 
very little labor. A globe is not a ball of wood; but a 
hollow sphere of papers and plaster. The mold, if we may 
so express it, of a globe is turned out of a piece of Tvood. 
This sphere need not be mathematically accurate. It is 
for rough work, and flaws and cracks are of little conse¬ 
quence. This wooden ball has an axis, a piece of iron 
wire at each pole. And here we may remark, that, at 
every stage of the process, the revolution of a sphere upon 


354 


GLOBE-MAKING. 


its axis, under the hands of the workman, is the one great 
principle which renders every operation one of comparative 
ease and simplicity. The labor would be enormously mul¬ 
tiplied if the same class of operations had to be performed 
upon a cube. The solid mold, then, of the embryo globe 
is placed on its axis in a wooden frame. In a very short 
time a boy will form a pasteboard globe upon its surface. 
He first covers it entirely with strips of strong paper, 
thoroughly wet, which are in a tub of water at his side. 
The slight inequalities produced by the over-lapping of the 
strips are immaterial. The saturated paper is not suffered 
to dry; but is immediately covered over with a layer of 
pasted paper, also cut in long narrow slips. A third layer 
of similarly pasted paper—brown paper and white being 
used alternately—is applied; and then, a fourth, a fifth, 
and a sixth. Here the pasting process ends for globes of 
moderate size. For the large ones it is carried further. 
This wet pasteboard ball has now to be dried—placed upon 
its axis in a rack. If we were determined to follow the 
progress of this individual ball through all its stages, we 
should have to wait a fortnight before it advanced another 
step. But in a large factory there are many scores of 
globes all rolling onward to perfection; and thus we may 
witness the next operation performed upon a pasteboard 
sphere that began to exist some weeks earlier, and is now 
hard to the core. 

The wooden ball, with its solid paper covering, is placed 
on its axis. A sharp cutting instrument, fixed $n a bench, 
is brought into contact with the surface of the sphere, 
which is made to revolve. In less time than we write, the 
pasteboard ball is cut in half. There is no adhesion to the 
wooden mold, for the first coating of paper was simply 
wetted. Two bowls of thick card now lie before us, with a 
small hole in each, made by the axis of the wooden ball. 


GLOBE-MAKING. 


355 


But a junction is very soon effected. Within every globe 
there is a piece of wood—we may liken it to a round ruler 
—of the exact length of the inner surface of the sphere 
from pole to pole. A thick wire runs through this wood, 
and originally projected some two or three inches at each 
end. This stick is placed upright in a vice. The semi¬ 
globe is nailed to one end of the stick, upon which it rests, 
when the wire is passed through its center. It is now re¬ 
versed, and the edges of the card rapidly covered with 
glue. The edges of the other semi-globe are instantly 
brought into contact, the other end of the wire passing 
through its center in the same way, and a similar nailing to 
the stick taking place. We have now a paper globe, with 
its own axis, which will be its companion for the whole 
term of its existence. 

The paper globe is next placed on its axis in a frame, of 
which one side is a semicircular piece of metal—the horizon 
of a globe cut in half would show its form. A tub of white 
composition—a compound of whiting, glue, and oil—is on 
the bench. The workman dips his hand into this “ gruel 
thick and slab,” and rapidly applies it to the paper sphere 
with tolerable evenness; but as it revolves, the semicircle 
of metal clears off the superfluous portions. The ball of 
paper is now a ball of plaster externally. Time again en¬ 
ters largely into the manufacture. The first coating must 
thoroughly dry before the next is applied, and so again till 
the process has been repeated four or five times. Thus, 
when we visit a globe-workshop, we are at first surprised at 
the number of white balls, from three inches in diameter to 
three feet, which occupy a large space. They are all steadily 
advancing toward completion ; and as they advance to the 
dignity of perfect spheres, increased pains is taken in the 
application of the plaster. At last they are polished. Their 
surface is as fine and hard as ivory. But beautiful as they 


356 


DOMESTIC AIDS TO LABOR. 


are, they may, like many other beautiful things, want a due 
equipoise. They must be perfectly balanced. They must 
move upon their poles with the utmost exactness. A few 
shot, let in here and there, correct all irregularities. And 
now the paper and plaster sphere is to be endued with 
intelligence. The sphere is marked with lines of direction 
for the purpose of covering it with engraved slips. We 
have now a globe with a plain map. An artist colors it by 
hand. 

We have given these examples of several modes of pro¬ 
duction, in which knowledge and skill have diminished 
labor, for the purpose of showing that not only machinery 
and scientific applications are constantly tending to the 
same end, but that the mere practice of the mechanical arts 
necessarily leads to labor-saving inventions. Every one of 
us who thinks at all is constantly endeavoring to diminish 
his individual labor by the use of some little contrivance 
which experience has suggested. Men who carry water in 
buckets, in places where water is scarce, put a circular piece 
of wood to float on the water, which prevents it spilling, 
and consequently lessens the labor. A boy who makes 
paper bags in a grocer’s shop so arranges them that he 
pastes the edges of twenty at a time, to diminish the labor. 
The porters of Amsterdam, who draw heavy goods upon a 
sort of sledge, every now and then throw a greased rope 
under the sledge, to diminish its friction, and, therefore, 
to lessen the labor of carrying it. Other porters, in the 
same city, have a little barrel containing water, attached to 
each side of the sledge, out of which the water slowly drips 
like the water upon a stone-cutter’s saw, to diminish the 
friction. 

In the domestic arrangements of a well-regulated house¬ 
hold, whether of a poor man or of a rich man, one of the 
chief cares is to save labor. Every contrivance to save 


DOMESTIC AIDS TO LABOK. 


357 


labor that ingenuity can suggest, is eagerly adopted when 
a country becomes highly civilized. In the middle ages, 
when such contrivances were little known, and materials as 
well as time were constantly wasted in every direction, a 
great baron was surrounded with a hundred menial serv¬ 
ants ; but he had certainly less real and useful labor per¬ 
formed for him than a merchant of the present day obtains 
from three servants. Are there fewer servants now em¬ 
ployed than in those times of barbarous state ? Certainly 
not. The persons of moderate means among us can get a 
great deal done for them in the way of domestic service, at 
a small expense, because servants are assisted by manifold 
contrivances which do much of the work for them. The 
contrivances render the article of service cheaper, and, 
therefore, there are more servants. The work being done 
by fewer servants, in consequence of the contrivances, the 
servants themselves are better paid than if there was no cost 
saved by the contrivance. 

The common jack by which meat is roasted, is described 
by Mr. Babbage as “ a contrivance to enable the cook in a 
few minutes to exert a force (in winding up the jack) which 
the machine retails out during the succeeding hour in turn- 
in the loaded spit, thus enabling her to turn her undivided 
attention on her other duties.” We have seen, years ago 
a man employed to turn a spit with a handle; dogs have 
been used to run in a wheel for the same purpose, and 
hence a particular breed so used are called “ turnspits.” 
When some ingenious servant-girl discovered that if she 
put a skewer through the meat and hung it before the fire 
by a skein of worsted, it would turn with very little atten¬ 
tion, she made an approach to the principle of the roasting- 
jack. All these contrivances diminish labor, and insure 
regularity of movement—and, therefore, they are valuable 
contrivances. 


358 


DOMESTIC AIDS TO LABOK. 


A bell which is pulled in one room and rings in another, 
and which, therefore, establishes a ready communication 
between the most distant parts of a house, is a contrivance 
to save labor. In a large family the total want of bells 
would add a fourth at least to the labor of servants. Where 
three servants are kept now, fonr servants would be re¬ 
quired to be kept then. Would the destruction of all the 
bells, therefore, add one fourth to the demand for servants ? 
Certainly not. The funds employed in paying for service 
would not be incresed a single farthing ; and, therefore, by 
the destruction of bells, some work would be left undone to 
make up for the additional labor required through the want 
of this useful contrivance; or all the servants would be 
more hardly worked. 

In some parts of India, the natives have a very rude 
contrivance to mark the progress of time. A thin metal 
cup, with a small hole in its bottom, is put to float in a 
vessel of water; and as the water rises through the hole the 
cup sinks in a given time—in twenty-four minutes. A serv¬ 
ant is set to watch the sinking of the cup, and when this 
happens he strikes upon a bell. Half a century ago, almost 
every cottage in England had its hour-glass—-an imperfect 
instrument for registering the progress of time, because it 
only indicated its course between hour and hour; and an 
instrument which required a very watchful attention, and 
some labor, to be of any use at all. The universal use of 
watches or clocks, in India, would wholly displace the labor 
of the servants who note the progress of time by the filling 
of the cup; and the same cause has displaced the equally 
unprofitable labor employed in turning the hour-glasss, and 
watching its movement. Every house in the United States 
has now a clock or watch of some sort; and evgry house in 
India would have the same, if the natives were more en¬ 
lightened, and were not engaged in so many modes of un- 


AIDS TO MENTAL LABOR. 


359 


profitable labor to keep them poor. His profitable labor 
has given the American mechanic the means of getting a 
watch. Machinery, used in every possible way, has made 
this watch cheap. The labor formerly employed in turning 
the hour-glass, or in running to look at the church clock, is 
transferred to the making of watches. The user of the 
watch obtains an accurate register of time, which teaches 
him to know the value of that most precious possession, 
and to economize it; and the producers of the watch have 
abundant employment in the universal demand for this val¬ 
uable machine. 

A watch or clock is an instrument for assisting an opera¬ 
tion of the mind. Without some instrument for registering 
time, the mind could very imperfectly attain the end which 
the watch attains, not requiring any mental labor. The ob¬ 
servation of the progress of time, by the situation of the sun 
in the day, or of particular stars at night, is a labor requir¬ 
ing great attention, and various sorts of accurate knowl¬ 
edge. It is therefore never attempted, except when men 
have no machines for registering time. In the same manner 
the labors of the mind have been saved in a thousand ways, 
by other contrivances of science. 

The foot-rule of the carpenter not only gives him the stand¬ 
ard of a foot measure, which he could not exactly ascertain 
by any experience, or any mental process, but it is also a 
scale of the proportions of an inch, or several inches, to a 
foot, and of the parts of an inch to an inch. What a quantity 
of calculations, and of dividing by compasses, does this little 
instrument save the carpenter, besides insuring a much 
greater degree of accuracy in all his operations ! The com¬ 
mon rules of arithmetic, which almost every boy now learns, 
are parts of a great invention for saving mental labor. 
The higher branches of mathematics, of which science arith¬ 
metic is a portion, are also inventions for saving labor, and 


360 


AIDS TO MENTAL LABOR. 


for doing what could never be done without these inven¬ 
tions. There are instruments, and very curious ones, for 
lessening the labor of all arithmetical calculations; and 
tables, that is, the results of certain calculations, which are 
of practical use, are constructed for the same purpose. 
When we buy a joint of meat, we often see the butcher 
turn to a little book, before he tells us how much a certain 
number of pounds and ounces amounts to, at a certain price 
per pound. This book is his “Ready Reckoner,” and a 
very useful book it is to him; for it enables him to dispatch 
his customers in half the time that he would otherwise re¬ 
quire, and thus to save himself a great deal of labor, and a 
great deal of inaccuracy. The inventions for saving mental 
labor, in calculations of arithmetic, have been carried so far, 
that Mr. Babbage had almost perfected a calculating ma¬ 
chine, which not only did its work of calculation without 
the possibility of error, but absolutely was to arrange print¬ 
ing types or figures, in a frame, so that no error could be 
produced in copying the calculations before they are print¬ 
ed. We mention this curious machine, to show how far 
science may go in diminishing mental labor, and insuring 
accuracy. The want of government aid prevented its com¬ 
pletion. 

To all who read this book it is no difficulty to count a 
hundred; and most know the relation which a hundred 
bears to a thousand, and a thousand bears to a million. 
Most are able, also, to read off those numbers, or parts of 
those numbers, when they see them marked down in 
figures. There are many uncivilized people in the world 
who can not count twenty. They have no idea whatever 
of numbers, beyond perhaps as far as the number of their 
fingers, or their fingers and their toes. How have we ob¬ 
tained this great superiority over these poor savages? 
Because science has been at work, for many centuries, 


AIDS TO MENTAL LABOR. 


361 


to diminish the amount of our mental labor, by teach¬ 
ing us the easiest modes of calculation. And how did 
we learn these modes? We learned them from our school¬ 
masters. 

If any follow up the false reasoning which has led some 
to think that whatever diminishes labor diminishes the num¬ 
ber of laborers, they might conclude that, as there is less 
mental work to be done, because science has diminished the 
labor of that work, there would, therefore, be fewer mental 
workmen. Thank God, the greater facilities that have been 
given to the cultivation of the mind, the greater is the 
number of those who exert themselves in that cultivation. 
The effects of saving unprofitable labor are the same in all 
cases. The use of machinery in aid of bodily labor has set 
that bodily labor to a thousand new employments; and has 
raised the character of the employments, by transferring 
the lowest of the drudgery to wheels and pistons. The use 
of science in the assistance of mental labor has conducted 
that labor to infinitely more numerous fields of exertion; 
and has elevated all intellectual pursuits, by making their 
commoner processes the play of childhood, instead of the 
toil of manhood. 

We can not doubt that any invention which gives assist¬ 
ance to the thinking powers of mankind, and, therefore, 
by dispensing with much mental drudgery, leads the mind 
forward to nobler exertions, is a benefit to all. It is not 
more than four hundred years ago, that the use of Arabic 
numerals, or figures, began to be generally known in this 
country. The first date in those numerals said to exist in 
England, is upon a brass plate in Ware church, 1454. The 
same date in Roman numerals, which were in use before 
the Arabic ones, would be expressed by eight letters 
mccccliv. The introduction of figures, therefore, was an im¬ 
mense saving of time in the commonest operations of arith- 

16 


362 


AIDS TO MENTAL LABOR. 


metic. How puzzled we should he, and what a quantity of 
labor we should lose, if We were compelled to reckon earn¬ 
ings and marketings by the long mode of notation, instead 
of the short one! This book is easily read, because it is 
written in words composed of twenty-four letters. In 
China, where there are no letters in use, every word in the 
language is expressed by a different character. Few people 
in China write or read; and those who do, acquire very 
little knowledge, except the mere knowledge of writing 
and reading. All the time of their learned men is occupied 
in acquiring the means of knowledge, and not the knowl¬ 
edge itself; and the bulk of the people get very little 
knowledge at all. It would be just the same thing if there 
were no machines or engines for diminishing manual labor. 
Those who had any property would occupy all their time, 
and the time of their immediate dependents, in raising food 
and making clothes for themselves, and the rest of the peo¬ 
ple would go without any food or clothes at all; or rather, 
which comes to the same thing, there would be no “ rest of 
the people;” the lord and his vassals would have all the 
produce; there would be half a million of people in the 
United States instead of twenty-three millions. 

When a boy has got hold of what we call the rudiments 
of learning, he has possessed himself of the most useful tools 
and machines which exist in the world. He has obtained 
the means of doing that with extreme ease, which, with¬ 
out these tools, is done only with extreme labor. He has 
earned the time which, if rightly employed, will elevate his 
mind, and therefore improve his condition. Just so is it 
with all tools and machines for diminishing bodily exertion. 
They give us the means of doing that with comparative 
ease, which, without them, can only be done with extreme 
drudgery. They set at liberty a great quantity of mere 
animal power, which, having then leisure to unite with 


AIDS TO MENTAL LABOR. 


363 


mental power, produces ingenious and skillful workmen in 
every trade. But they do more than this. They diminish 
human suffering—they improve the health; they increase 
the term of life; they render all occupations less painful 
and laborious; and, by doing all this, they elevate man in 
the scale of existence. 

A late Pasha of Egypt, in one of those fits of caprice 
which it is the nature of tyrants to exhibit, ordered, a few 
years ago, that the male population of a district should be 
set to clear out one of the ancient canals which was then 
filled up with mud. The people had no tools, and the 
Pasha gave them no tools; but the work was required to 
be done. So to work the poor wretches went, to the num¬ 
ber of fifty thousand. They had to plunge up to their necks 
in the filthiest slime, and to bale it out with their hands, 
and their hands alone. They were fed, it is true, during 
the operation; but their food was of a quality proportioned 
to the little profitable labor which they performed. They 
were fed on horse-beans and water. In the course of one 
year, more than thirty thousand of these unhappy people 
perished. If the tyrant, instead of giving labor to fifty 
thousand people, had possessed the means of setting up 
steam-engines to pump out the water, and mud-machines 
to scoop out the mud—or, if he had provided the pump, 
which is called Archimedes’ screw, and was invented by 
that philosopher for the very purpose of draining land in 
Egypt—or if the people had even had scoops and shovels, 
instead of being degraded like beasts, to the employment 
of their unassisted hands—the work might have been done 
at a fiftieth of the cost, even of the miserable pittance of 
horse-beans and water; and the money that was saved by 
the tools and machines, might have gone to furnish profit¬ 
able labor to the thousands who perished amid the misery 
and degradation of their unprofitable labor. 


.364 


AIDS TO MENTAL LABOR. 


Some may say that this is a case which does not apply to 
ns; because we are free men, and can not be compelled to 
perish, up to our necks in mud, upon a pittance of horse- 
beans, doled out by a tyrant. Exactly so. But what has 
made us free ? Knowledge. Knowledge—which, in rais¬ 
ing the moral and intellectual character of every American, 



MUD-MACHINE. 


has raised up barriers to oppression which no power can 
ever break down. Knowledge—which has set ingenious 
men thinking in every way how to increase the profitable 
labor of the nation, and therefore to increase the comforts 
of every man in the nation. 

The people of England and the United States have gone 
on increasing very rapidly during the last fifty years ; and 
the average length of life has also gone on increasing in the 
same remarkable manner. Men who have attended to sub- 






























EFFECTS OF SEVERE BODILY LABOR. 365 

jects of political economy have always been desirous to 
procure accurate returns of the average duration of life at 
particular places, and they could pretty well estimate the 
condition of the people from these returns. Savages, it is 
well known, are not long livers; that is, although there 
may be a few old people, the majority of savages die very 
young. Why is this ? Many of the savage nations that 
we know have much finer climates than our own; but then, 
on the other hand, they sustain privations which the poorest 
man among us never feels. Their supply of food is uncer¬ 
tain, they want clothing, they are badly sheltered from the 
weather, or not sheltered at all, they undergo very severe 
labor when they are laboring. From all these causes savages 
die young. Is it not reasonable, therefore, to infer that if 
in any particular country the average duration of life goes 
on increasing; that is, if fewer people, in a given number 
and a given time, die now than formerly, the condition of 
that people is improved; that they have more of the neces¬ 
saries and comforts of life, and labor less severely to pro¬ 
cure them? Now let us see how the people of England 
stand in this respect. The average mortality in a year 
about a century ago was reckoned to be one in thirty, and 
now it is one in forty-six.* This result is, doubtless, pro¬ 
duced in some degree by improvement in the science of 
medicine, and particularly by the use of vaccination. But 

® The average mortality of the people of the United States, as calcu¬ 
lated from the returns of the last census (1850) is as follows: “In the 
New England States, the average mortality in a year is one in sixty-four; 
in the Middle States, with Ohio, one to seventy-two; in the Southern 
planting and slave States, one to seventy-three; in the North-western 
States, one to seventy-three. Total average for the whole United States, 
one to seventy-three. This is substantially the ratio stated by Noah 
Webster for the interior towns in 1805. “The annual deaths,” he ob¬ 
serves, “ amount only to one in seventy or seventy-five of the popu¬ 
lation.” 


y66 


EFFECTS OF SEVERE BODILY LABOR. 


making every allowance for these benefits, the fact furnishes 
the most undeniable truth, that the people of England are 
much better fed, clothed, and lodged than they were a cen¬ 
tury ago, and that the labor which they perform is far less 
severe. 

The effect of continued violent bodily exertion upon the 
duration of life might be illustrated by many instances; 
we shall mention one. The late Mr. Edgeworth, in his 
Memoirs, repeatedly speaks of a boatman whom he knew 
at Lyons, as an old man. “ His hair,” says Mr. Edgeworth, 
“ was gray, his face wrinkled, his back bent, and all his 
limbs and features had the appearance of those of a man 
of sixty; yet his real age was but twenty-seven years. He 
told me that he was the oldest boatman on the Rhone, 
that his younger brothers had been worn out before they 
were twenty-five years old; such were the effects of the 
hardships to which they were subject from the nature of 
their employment.” That employment was, by intense 
bodily exertion, and with the daily chance of being upset, 
to pull a boat across one of the most rapid rivers in the 
world— 

“ The swift and arrowy Khone,” 

as one of our poets calls it. How much happier would these 
boatmen have been during their lives, and how much longer 
would they have lived, could their labor have been relieved 
by some mechanical contrivance! and without doubt, the 
same contrivance would have doubled the number of boat- 
men, by causing the passage to be more used. As it was, 
they were few in number, they lived only a few years, and 
the only gratification of those few years was an inordinate 
stimulus of brandy. This is the case in all trades where 
immense efforts of bodily power are required. The exer¬ 
tion itself wears out the people, and the dram which gives 


EFFECTS OF SEVERE BODILY LABOR. 


367 


a momentary impulse to the exertion, wears them out still 
more. The coal-heavers of London, healthy as they look, 
are hut a short-lived people. The heavy loads which they 
carry, and the quantity of liquor which they drink, both 
together make sad havoc with them. 

Violent bodily labor, in which the muscular power of the 
body is unequally applied, generally produces some peculiar 
disease. Nearly all the pressmen who were accustomed to 
print newspapers of a large size, by hand, were ruptured. 
The printing-machine now does the same description of work. 

What is the effect upon the condition of pressmen gener¬ 
ally by the introduction of the printing-machine to do the 
heaviest labor of printing ? That the trade of a pressman 
is daily becoming one more of skill than of drudgery. At 
the same time that the printing-machine was invented, one 
of the principles of that machine, that of inking the types 
with a roller instead of two large cushions, called balls, was 
introduced into hand-printing. The pressmen were de¬ 
lighted with this improvement. “Ay,” said they, “ this 
saves our labor; we are relieved from the hard work of dis¬ 
tributing the ink upon the balls.” What the roller did for 
the individual pressman, the machine, which can only be 
beneficially applied to rapid and to very heavy printing, 
does for the great body of pressmen. It removes a certain 
portion of the drudgery, which degraded the occupation, 
and rendered it painful and injurious to health. We have 
seen two pressmen working a daily paper against time: it 
was always necessary, before the introduction of the ma¬ 
chines, to put an immense quantity of bodily energy into 
the labor of working a newspaper, that it might be pub¬ 
lished at the proper hour. Time, in this case, was driving 
the pressman as fast as the rapid stream drove the boatmen 
of the Rhone; and the speed with which they worked was 
killing them as quickly. 


368 


EFFECTS OF SEVERE BODILY LABOR, 


It has oftentimes been asserted that those exposed to 
severe labor in the open atmosphere, were the least subject 
to sickness. This has recently been proven a fallacy by Mr. 
Finlaison, Actuary of the National Debt Office in London. 
Of persons engaged at heavy labor in out-door exposure, 
the per centage of sickness in the year is 28.05. Of those 
engaged at heavy labor in-doors, such as blacksmiths, etc., 
the per centage of sickness is 26.54—not much difference to 
be sure—but of those engaged at light occupations in-doors 
and out, the per centage of sickness is only 20.80—21.58. 
For every three cases of sickness in those engaged at light 
labor, there are four cases among those whose lot is heavy 
labor. The mortality, however, is greatest among those 
engaged in light toil, and in-door labor is less favorable to 
longevity than laboring in the open atmosphere. It is 
established clearly, however, Mr. Finlaison says, “ that the 
quantum of sickness annually falling to the lot of man, is in 
direct proportion to demands on his muscular power.” How 
true this makes the assertion, “ Every inventor who abridges 
labor and relieves man from the drudgery of severe toil, is 
a benefactor of his race.” Man is relieved from drudgery 
by the iron sinews of the machine, and his own are left to 
move more lightly and free in pursuing avocations demand¬ 
ing less physical but more mental and noble exertion. 


r 



CHAPTER XXII. 

INFLU .NCES OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE DIRECTION OF LABOR AND CAPITAL.—MANU¬ 
FACTURE OF SODA-ASH.—CONNECTION OF SOAP AND CIVILIZATION.—ASTRONOMER — 
CHRONOMETER.—MARINER’S COMPASS.—SCIENTIFIC TRAVELERS.—NEW MATERIALS 
OF MANUFACTURES.—INDIA RUBBER.—GUTTA-PERCHA.—PALM-OIL.—GEOLOGY.— 
INVENTIONS THAT DIMINISH RISK.—SCIENCE RAISING UP NEW EMPLOYMENTS.— 
ELECTRICITY.—GALVANISM.—SUN-LIGHT.— MENTAL LABORERS.— ENLIGHTENED 
PUBLIC SENTIMENT. 

Lord Bacon, the great master of practical wisdom, lias 
said that “ the effort to extend the dominion of man over 
nature is the most healthy and most noble of all ambitions.” 
“ The empire of man,” he adds, “ over material things has 
for its only foundation the sciences and the arts.”* A great 

* We have taken this sentence as a motto which may point to the 
general scope of this volume. 

10 * 



370 


INFLUENCE OF KNOWLEDGE. 


deal of the knowledge which constitutes this dominion has 
been the property of society, handed down from the earli¬ 
est ages. No one can tell, for instance, how the art of 
leavening bread was introduced among mankind; and yet 
this process, now so familiar to all, contributes as much, if 
not more, than any other art to the wholesome and agree¬ 
able preparation of our food. Leavening bread is a branch 
of chemistry, and, like that process, many other processes 
of chemistry have been the common property of civilized 
man from time immemorial. Within a few centuries, how¬ 
ever, science has applied its discoveries to the perfection of 
the arts ; and in proportion as capital has been at hand to 
encourage science, has the progress of the application been 
certain and rapid. The old Alchemists, or hunters after 
the philosopher’s stone, sought to create capital by their 
discoveries. They could not make gold, but they discov¬ 
ered certain principles which have done as much for the 
creation of utility in a few hundred years as the rude 
manual labor of all mankind during the same period. Let 
it not be supposed that we wish to depreciate manual labor. 
We only wish to show that labor is incomparably more 
prolific when directed by science. Mahomet Bey, the 
ruler of Tunis, was dethroned by his subjects. He had 
the reputation of possessing the philosopher’s stone, or 
the art of turning common metals into gold. The Hey 
of Algiers restored him to his throne upon condition that 
the secret should be communicated to him. Mahomet, 
with great pomp and solemnity, sent the Hey of Algiers 
a plow. This was so far well. He intimated that to 
compel production by labor is to make a nation rich. But 
had he been able to transmit some of the science which 
now controls and guides the operations of the plow—the 
chemical knowledge which teaches the proper application 
of manures to soils—the rotation of crops introduced by 


INFLUENCE OF KNOWLEDGE. 


371 


the turnip-husbandry, which renders it unnecessary that the 
ground should ever be idle—he would have gone further 
toward communicating the real philosopher’s stone. 

The indirect influence, too, of a general advance in 
knowledge upon the particular advance of any branch of 
labor, is undeniable; for the inquiring spirit of an age 
spreads itself on all sides, and improvement is carried into 
the most obscure recesses, the darkest chinks and corners 
of a nation. It has been wisely and beautifully said, “We 
can not reasonably expect that a piece of woolen cloth will 
be brought to perfection in a nation which is ignorant of 
astronomy, or where ethics are neglected.”* The positive 
influence of science in the direction of labor is chiefly 
exhibited in the operations of mechanics and chemistry ap¬ 
plied to the arts, in the shape of machines for saving mate¬ 
rials and labor, and of processes for attaining the same 
economy. 

We have described the effects of some of these manifold 
inventions in the improvement of the condition both of 
producers and consumers. But there are many particulars 
in which knowledge has labored, and is still laboring, for 
the advance of the physical and moral condition of us all, 
which may have escaped attention; because these labors 
operate remotely and indirectly, though not without the 
highest ultimate certainty and efficiency, in aiding the 
great business of production. These are the influences of 
science upon labor, not so direct £s the mechanical skill 
which has contrived the steam-engine, or so indirect as the 
operation of ethics upon the manufacture of a piece of 
woolen cloth; but which confer a certain and in some 
instances enormous benefit upon production, by the opera¬ 
tion of causes which, upon a superficial view, appear to be 
only matters of laborious but unprofitable speculation. If 
* Hume’s Essays. 


372 


MANUFACTURE OF SODA-ASH. 


we succeed in pointing out the extent and importance of 
those aids which production derives from the labors of men 
who have not been ordinarily classed among “ working 
men,” but who have been truly the hardest and most prof¬ 
itable workers which society has ever possessed, we shall 
show what an intimate union subsists among those classes 
of society who appear the most separated, and that these 
men really labor with all others most effectually in the 
advancement of the great interests of mankind. 

“No limit,” says Professor Forbes, “can be set to the 
importance, even in a purely productive and material point 
of view, of mere thought. The labor of the savant, or 
speculative thinker, is as much a part of production, in the 
very narrowest sense, as that of the inventor of a practical 
art; many such inventions having been the direct conse¬ 
quences of theoretic discoveries, and every extension of 
the knowledge of the powers of nature being fruitful of 
applications to the purposes of outward life.” 

A most striking illustration of this is shown in the history 
and results of the discovery of the process for manufactur¬ 
ing soda from common salt. This process was first devised 
by Le Blanc, a French chemist, about the close of the last 
century. It remained for a long time unnoticed, or was re¬ 
garded as simply a curious chemical result, interesting 
merely in a scientific point of view. It was not, indeed, 
until 1820 that any successful trial was made with it in En¬ 
gland. 

But the reader will ask, what was used before this process 
was adopted ? It is well known that the two great chemi¬ 
cal productions, soap and glass, which at present employ 
and keep in circulation an enormous capital, depend on 
the use of soda as an alkaline principle. Previous to 1820 , 
nearly all the soda of commerce was obtained from the 
ashes of sea-weeds, which sold in the market under the 


MANUFACTURE OF SODA-ASH. 


373 


name of Spanish barilla and kelp, the latter being produced 
chiefly on the coast of Scotland. Only a small quantity of 
the weight of these substances, however, was an alkali. 
The barilla contained eighteen per cent., and was sold 
for about fifty dollars per ton; and the kelp only five or six 
per cent., and sold for about twenty dollars per ton. It is 
clear that the soap or glass-maker in buying these sub¬ 
stances would, in the one case, purchase ninety-five parts of 
worthless material, and in the other, eighty-two parts—we 
say worthless, because of no service in the fabrication of 
soap or glass. It would seem, therefore, that the introduc¬ 
tion of a strong and cheap alkali would have been hailed by 
the soap and glass-makers as one of the greatest advantages. 
But in the commencement of the undertaking to manufac¬ 
ture the soda from salt it was quite the contrary, and the 
chemists and soda manufacturers found it extremely difficult 
to dissipate the prejudice in favor of the kelp and barilla. 
When, however, the soda prepared from salt (the common 
soda-ash of commerce) was once introduced, it so reduced 
the cost of making soap, that the operation of alkalizing 
the fats which had before cost forty dollars per ton was 
effected more speedily at ten dollars per ton. The conse¬ 
quence was that the whole soap trade required soda-ash, 
and the demand for soap, on account of its reduced price, 
was so great that for some time the soda-ash was sent to 
the soap-makers of Liverpool hot from the furnaces, in iron 
carts, the manufacturers of soda being wholly unable to 
answer the calls made upon them. Similar effects were 
produced in the manufacture of glass. The business of 
manufacturing soda-ash increased so fast that, in 1837, 
seventeen years after the establishment of the first manu¬ 
factory in England, the quantity produced in a single year 
was 72,000 tons, and at the present time it is more than 
doubled. The same year, also, Liverpool alone exported 


374 


CONNECTION OF SOAP AND CIVILIZATION. 


more soda than the whole of Great Britain had done pre¬ 
vious to the introduction of soda-ash. 

The manufacturers of kelp and barilla were in a great 
measure deprived of employment by this discovery, and, 
doubtless, complained bitterly. But the compensation ren¬ 
dered by the employment of a greater number of laborers 
in manufacturing and exporting soda-ash, and in producing 
the increased amounts of glass and soap required, was not 
all. To manufacture soda from salt requires the employ¬ 
ment of sulphuric acid and common salt. To produce sul¬ 
phuric acid, sulphur and nitrate of soda are necessary. The 
new and increased demand for these articles gave an impe¬ 
tus to labor all over the world. In 1824, the amount of 
sulphur used in England but little exceeded 5,000 tons per 
annum. In 1847, the amount consumed was 24,220 tons. 
The glass-maker, to supply the increased demand for his 
products, has been obliged to buy more sand and lead; and 
the soap-maker has required a greater supply of fats. As 
the amount of fat produced by animals can not be suddenly 
increased at will, human ingenuity has resorted to other 
expedients to meet the necessities of the case, and fats are 
now obtained in great quantities from the vegetable king¬ 
dom, especially from the palm-trees of the west coast of 
Africa. In 1824, England consumed only 8,900 casks of 
palm-oil; in 1853, the amount imported into Great Britain 
was upward of 70,000 casks, and a nearly equal amount 
must have been imported to France, the United States, and 
other countries. In addition to the increased demand for 
labor, consequent upon the consumption of this large amount 
of palm-oil, its importation from the coast of Africa has 
produced most beneficial effects. In the districts from 
whence the great supplies of palm-oil are obtained, the 
slave-trade was formerly carried on with great vigor; but 
now, in these same districts, the natives are profitably em- 


CONNECTION OF SOAP AND CIVILIZATION. 375 

ployed, and the slave-trade, which can never stand in the 
presence of commerce, has been in consequence effectually 
crushed. The alkali manufacturer, therefore, is thus indi¬ 
rectly a minister of civilization, and a creator of independ¬ 
ence to nations, for he makes regulated industry essential to 
these nations, consequently rendering local labor valuable. 

A late writer has thus calculated the value of the discov¬ 
ery of Le Blanc to the English nation, from 1820 to 1827, 
so far only as respects the maufacture of soap : “ One ton 
of soda-ash now goes as far as eight tons of kelp and three 
tons of barilla ; therefore, taking the charge now made for a 
ton of kelp and a ton of barilla, compared with that of soda- 
ash, a saving has been effected equivalent to $7,000,000; 
and taking the prices of these articles previous to the intro¬ 
duction of soda-ash, the saving to the country has been 
upward of $20,000,000.” 

Thus we see how great a benefit to the world has resulted 
directly and indirectly, from the labors of a comparatively 
obscure chemist, working in his laboratory—labors, which 
at the time they were performed, were no doubt considered 
by the great majority of those cognizant of them as of no 
practical value. 

According to Liebig, the quantity of soap consumed by 
a nation would be no inaccurate measure whereby to esti¬ 
mate its wealth and civilization. Of two countries, there¬ 
fore, with an equal amount of population, the wealthiest and 
most highly civilized will consume the greatest quantity of 
soap; which consumption does not subserve sensual gratifi¬ 
cation, nor depend upon fashion, but upon the feeling of the 
beauty, comfort, and welfare attendant upon cleanliness; 
and a regard to this feeling is consistent with wealth and 
civilization. The rich in the middle ages concealed a want 
of cleanliness in their cloths and persons under a profusion 
of costly scents and essences, while they were more luxu- 


376 


ASTRONOMY. 


rious in eating and drinking, in apparel and horses. With 
us a want of cleanliness is equivalent to insupportable misery 
and misfortune. Thanks to the labors of science, the price 
of soap at the present time is such as to debar not even the 
poorest from its unrestricted use. 

When Hume thought that a nation would be behind in 
the manufacture of cloth that had not studied astronomy, 
he perhaps did not mean to go the length of saying, that 
the study of astronomy has a real influence in making cloth 
cheaper, in lessening the cost of production, and in therefore 
increasing the number of consumers. But look at the direct 
influence of astronomy upon navigation. A seaman, by the 
guidance of principles laid down by the great minds that 
have directed their mathematical powers to the study of 
astronomy—such minds as those of Newton and La Place— 
measures the moon’s apparent distance from a particular 
star. He turns to a page in the “Nautical Almanac,” and 
by a calculation directed principally by this table, can de¬ 
termine whereabout he is upon the broad ocean, although 
he may not have seen land for three months. Sir John 
Herschel, has given in his “ Discourse on the Study of Nat¬ 
ural Philosophy,” an instance of the accuracy of such lunar 
observations, in an account of a voyage of eight thousand 
miles, by Captain Basil Hall, who, without a single land¬ 
mark during eighty-nine days, ran his ship into the harbor 
of Rio as accurately, and with as little deviation, as a coach¬ 
man drives his stage into an inn-yard. But navigation not 
only depends upon lunar distances, but upon an instrument 
which shall keep perfect time under every change of tem¬ 
perature produced by variety of climate. That instrument 
is a chronometer. Every one who possesses a watch, how¬ 
ever good, must have experienced the effects of heat or cold 
upon its accuracy, in making it go faster or slower—perhaps 
a minute in a week. Now if there were not an instrument 


THE CHRONOMETER. 


377 


that would measure time so exactly that between London 
and New York not a minute, or large fraction of a minute, 
would be lost or gained, the voyage would be one of diffi¬ 
culty and uncertainty. A Yorkshire joiner, John Harrison, 



NEW YORK AND LIVERPOOL STEAMER. 


at the beginning of the last century, found out the principle 
of the chronometer, which consists in the union in the 
balance-spring of two metals, one which contracts under in¬ 
creased temperature, and one which expands; and on the 
contrary under diminished temperature. Harrison worked 
for fifty years at his discovery; and he obtained a parlia¬ 
mentary reward of £20,000. 

The English chronometers are set by what is called 
Greenwich time. The beautiful instruments that are con¬ 
stantly at work, and the laborious calculations which are 
daily proceeding, at the Observatory, are essentially neces¬ 
sary for the maintenance of a commerce that embraces the 
whole habitable globe. 

But what has this, it maybe said, to do with the price of 
clothing ? Exactly this : part of the price arises from the 



<378 


INTERIOR OF GREENWICH 


OBSERVATO 










































































































































































































































































































































































































































































mariner’s compass. 


379 


cost of transport. If there were no “ lunar distances” in 
the “ Nautical Almanac,” or chronometers, the voyage from 
New York to Liverpool might require three months instead 
of a fortnight. But go a step farther hack in the influence 
of science upon navigation. There was a time when ships 
could hardly venture to leave the shore. In the days of our 
Anglo-Saxon ancestors, a merchant who went three times 
over the sea with his own craft, was entitled to rank as a 
thegn, or nobleman. Long after this early period of En¬ 
gland’s navigation, voyages across the Atlantic could never 
have been attempted. That was before the invention of the 
mariner’s compass; but even after that invention, when 
astronomy was not scientifically applied to navigation, long 
voyages were considered in the highest degree dangerous. 
The crews both of Vasco de Gama, who discovered the 
passage to India, and of Columbus, principally consisted of 
criminals, who were pardoned on condition of undertaking 
a service of such peril. The discovery of magnetism, how¬ 
ever, changed the whole principle of navigation, and raised 
seamanship to a science. If the mariner’s compass had not 
been invented, America could never have been discovered; 
and if America, and the passage to India by the Cape of 
Good Hope, had never been discovered, cotton would never 
have been brought to England; and if cotton had never 
been brought to England, the English people would have 
been as badly oft* for clothing as the people of the middle 
ages, and the millions of working men and women, manu¬ 
facturers of cotton, and dealers in cotton goods, would have 
been without employment. 

Astronomy, therefore, and navigation, both sciences the 
results of long ages of patient inquiry, have opened a com¬ 
munication between the uttermost ends of the earth; and 
therefore have had a slow, but certain effect upon the pro¬ 
duction of wealth, and the consequent diffusion of all the 


380 


MAPS. 


necessaries, comforts, and conveniences of civilized life. 
The connection between manufactures and science, practical 
commerce and abstract speculation, is so intimate that it 
might be traced in a thousand striking instances. • Colum¬ 
bus, the discoverer of America, satisfied his mind that the 
earth was round; and when he had got this abstract idea 
firmly in his head, he next became satisfied that he should 
find a new continent by sailing in a westerly course. The 
abstract notion which filled the mind of Columbus that the 
earth was a sphere, ultimately changed the condition of 
every living being in the Old W^orld that then existed, or 
has since existed. In the year 1488, the first geographical 
maps and charts that had been seen in England were 
brought hither by the brother of Christopher Columbus. 
If these maps had not been constructed by the unceasing 
labors of men in their closets, Columbus would never have 
thought of discovering “the unknown land” which occu¬ 
pied his whole soul. If the scanty knowledge of geography 
which existed in the time of Columbus had not received 
immense additions from the subsequent labors of other 
students of geography, the United States would not have 
thousands of merchant ships ready to trade wherever men 
have any thing to exchange—that is, wherever men are en¬ 
abled to give of their abundance for our abundance, each 
being immensely benefitted by the intercourse. A map 
now appears a common thing, but it is impossible to over¬ 
rate the extent of the accumulated observations that go to 
make up a map. An almanac seems a common thing, but 
it.is impossible to overrate the prodigious accumulations of 
science that go to make up an almanac. With these accu¬ 
mulations, it is now no very difficult matter to construct a 
map or an almanac. But if society could be deprived of 
the accumulations, and we had to re-create and remodel 
every thing for the formation of our map and our almanac, 


MAPS. 


381 


it would perhaps require many centuries before these accu¬ 
mulations could be built up again; and all the arts of life 
would go backward, for want of the guidance of the princi¬ 
ples of which the map and the almanac are the interpreters 
for popular use. But the maps and charts of former days 
are not now deemed sufficient for the present necessities of 
commerce, and new examinations, and more accurate ex¬ 
plorations are constantly projected and carried out by gov¬ 
ernments, or private individuals. Several years ago, Lieut. 
Maury commenced to gather from old sea journals such 
information as they might be found to contain relative to 
the winds and currents of the sea, and to embody the in¬ 
formation so obtained on a series of charts, in such a man¬ 
ner as to show by diagrams the prevailing direction of the 
winds and currents for every month and in every part of 
the ocean. From the information gained by the careful ex¬ 
amination and comparison of more than a thousand log¬ 
books, he has been enabled to prepare numerous charts 
showing various sailing routes and the direction of the 
winds and currents by the use of which the duration of voy¬ 
ages has been considerably shortened. A large amount of 
benefit has thus accrued to commerce, and with reference 
to the voyage between Europe and America alone, it is 
stated that ships now go from New York to England and 
back in less time than, when Charleston was the half-way 
house, they could get from Charleston to London. 

There never was a time when man had so complete pos¬ 
session of the planet which he inhabits as the present. 
Much of the globe has yet to be explored; but how much 
is familiar to us that was comparatively unknown even at 
the beginning of the present century! How thoroughly 
during that period have we acclimated many of the plants 
of distant lands, which are now the common beauties of 
our gardens and green-houses! There are thousands of 


382 


SCIENTIFIC TRAVELERS. 


timber-trees coming to rapid maturity in our parks and 
pleasure-grounds which, thirty years ago, grew only in the 
solitudes of California and Australia. What impelled Led- 
yard, Sir John Franklin, Humboldt, and hundreds of other 
travelers of a similar character, to encounter the perils of 
travel in desert regions, but the abstract love of science, 
which made them naturalists in their closets before they 
were explorers and discoverers ? We are familiar with 
the name of Linnaeus, and the Linnaean system of botany; 
and some may think that this great naturalist was not 
doing much for knowledge when he classified and arranged 
what we call the vegetable kingdom. When very young, 
Linnaeus underwent many hardships in traveling through 
Lapland, in search of plants. So far, some may say, he was 
well employed. He was equally well employed when he 
made such an inventory, to use a familiar term, of all the 
known plants of his time, as would enable succeeding nat¬ 
uralists to know a distinct species from an accidental vari¬ 
ety, and to give a precision to all future botanical investi¬ 
gation. Other naturalists have produced other systems, 
which may be more simple and convenient; but the im¬ 
pulse which Linnaeus gave to botanical discovery, and 
thence to the increase of the vegetable wealth of Europe, 
can never be too highly appreciated. 

In every branch of natural history, the study of the 
science, in its manifold forms of classification, is constantly 
leading to the most valuable discoveries connected with 
our means of existence. Some twenty years ago all the 
timber of the Hartz Forest in Germany was destroyed by a 
species of beetle, which, gnawing completely round the 
bark, prevented the sap from rising. This destructive 
animal made its appearance in England; and science very 
soon discovered the cause of the evil, and provided for 
its removal. If there had been no knowledge of natural 


NEW MATERIALS OF MANUFACTURES. 383 

history here, not a tree would have been left in the woods: 
and what then would have been the cost of timber. The 
naturalist is now carrying his investigations, with the aid 
of the microscope, into the lowest departments of animal 
life. He finds the causes of blight and mildew, and knows 
the species of the minutest insect that mars the hopes of 
the farmer and the gardener. The chemist steps in; aud 
the ravager is destroyed or rendered less noxious. 

It is to the scientific travelers that we owe the successive 
introduction of new materials of manufactures. Of the 
enormous extent in which such new materials affect pro¬ 
duction, we may form some adequate notion from the 
mention of three—India rubber, Gutta-percha, and Palm- 
oil. 

In 1853 we imported 2,000,000 lbs. of caoutchouc or 
India rubber. The gum of a Brazilian tree, discovered by 
some scientific Frenchman in 1735, had been employed for 
nearly a century for no higher purpose than rubbing out 
pencil-marks. Recently the mode of applying this sub¬ 
stance for the production of water-proof garments was 
discovered. In 1830 we only imported a small quantity. 
Since then caoutchouc has become one of our great mate¬ 
rials of manufacture, applied, not only to clothing, but to 
useful articles of every description. Its great property of 
elasticity has rendered it available in numberless instances 
beyond those of making cloth water-proof and air-tight. 
When we discovered how to make India rubber soluble 
by spirit, we obtained our water-proof clothes, our air- 
cushions, and water-beds. When machinery drew out the 
lump of gum into the finest threads, and connected them 
with cotton, flax, silk, or worsted, in a braiding-machine, 
we became provided with every species of elastic web 
that can render dress at once tight arid easy. But chem¬ 
istry has carried the use of India rubber further than 


384 


INDIA RUBBER. 


the spirit -which dissolves it, or the machinery which 
splits it into minute threads. Chemistry has combined 
it with sulphur, and thus added in a remarkable degree 
to its strength and its elasticity. It has made it inde¬ 
pendent of temperature. It has doubled its utility. “ Vul- 
canized India rubber” is one of the most valuable of recent 
inventions. 

It is a striking characteristic of our age, and particularly 
as compared with the period when India rubber was first 
sent to Europe, that the application of gutta percha to the 
arts immediately followed the discovery of the substance. 
In 1842, Dr. Montgomerie was observing a wood-cutter at 
Singapore at his ordinary labor. Looking at the man’s 
ax he saw that the handle was not of wood, but of some 
material that he had not previously known. The woodman 
told Dr. Montgomerie that, hard as the handle was, it 
became quite soft in boiling water, and could be molded 
into any form, when it would again become hard. It was a 
gum from a tree growing in various islands of the Eastern 
archipelago, called pertsha . Specimens were immediately 
sent to the Society of Arts at London; and the inquiring 
surgeon to the Presidency at Singapore received the Soci- 
ety’s gold-medal. In 1842-3, Mr. Lobb, visiting these 
islands to collect botanical specimens, also discovered the 
same tree, and the gum which issues from it. 

Since then the wonderful utility of this new material has 
been established in very various applications. But the gum 
would have remained comparatively useless but for the in¬ 
ventive spirit which has subdued every difficulty of a new 
manufacture. The substance is now applied to the hum¬ 
blest as well as the highest purposes. It is a clothes’ line 
defying the weather; it is a buffer for a rail-way carriage. 
It is a stopping for a hollow tooth ; it is a sheathing for the 
wire that conveys the electric spark across the Channel. It 


GUTTA-PERCHA 


385 


is a cricket-ball; it is a life-boat in the Arctic seas. It is a 
noiseless curtain-ring; it is a sanitary water-pipe. It resists 
the action of many chemical substances, and is thus largely 
employed for vessels in bleaching and dyeing factories; it 
is capable of being molded into the most beautifal forms, 
and thus becomes one of the most efficient materials for 
multiplying works of ornamental art. The collection of 
gutta-percha has given a new stimulus to the feeble industry 
of the inhabitants of Java and Sumatra, and Borneo, and a 
new direction to the commerce of Singapore. It has brought 
the people of the Indian archipelago into more direct contact 
with European civilization. 



APPEARANCE OF THE GUTTA-PERCHA OF COMMERCE. 

What the use of gutta-percha is doing for the Malays, 
the use of palm-oil is doing for the Africans. Much of this 
oil is used for making candles. What has created this enor¬ 
mous manufacture of one of the most improved articles of 
domestic utility ? Knowledge. The palm-oil candles have 
been brought to their present perfection by chemical and 
mechanical appliances, working with the most complete 
division of labor, carried through by the nicest economy 
resulting from great administrative skill. The superior 
quality of the products of the oil-candle factories is the re¬ 
sult of chemistry. A French chemist discovered that fats, 
such as oil, were composed of three inflammable acids two 
of which, called stearic and margaric, are solid; and one 

17 




386 


PALM-OIL.-GEOLOGY. 


called oleic, fluid. Another substance called glycerine is 
also present. The oil is now freed from the oleic acid and 
the glycerine, which interfere with its power of producing 
light, and the two solid acids are crystalized. What are 
called stearine and composite candles are thus produced, at 
a cost which is really less than that of the old tallow-can¬ 
dles, when we consider that they burn longer and with 
greater brilliancy, besides being freed from a disagreeable 
smell and from a tendency to gutter. Candles from animal 
fat have also been greatly improved by chemical appliances 
in the preparation of the tallow. 

Science, we thus see, connects distant regions, and ren¬ 
ders the world one great commercial market. Science is, 
therefore, a chief instrument in the production of commer¬ 
cial wealth. Bnt we have a world beneath our feet which 
science has only just now begun to explore. We want fuel 
and metallic ore to be raised from the bowels of the earth; 
and, till within a very few years, we used to dig at random 
when we desired to dig a mine, or confided the outlay of 
thousands of pounds to be used in digging, to some quack 
whose pretensions to knowledge were even more deceptive 
than a reliance upon chance. The science of geology, al¬ 
most within the last quarter of a century, has been able, 
upon certain principles, to determine where coal especially 
can be found, by knowing in what strata of earth coal is 
formed ; and thus the expense of digging through earth to 
search for coal, when science would at once pronounce that 
no coal was there, has been altogether withdrawn from the 
amount of capital to be expended in the raising of coal. 
That this saving has not been small, we may know from the 
fact, that eighty thousand pounds were expended fruitlessly 
in digging for coal in England, not many years ago, which 
expense geology would have instantly prevented ; and have 
thus accumulated capital, and given a profitable stimulus to 


GEOLOGY. 


387 


labor, by saving their waste. But geological science has 
not only prevented the expensive search for coal where it 
does not exist, but has shown that it does exist where, a 
few years ago, it was held impossible to find it. The prac¬ 
tical men of England, as they are called, maintained that 
coal could not be found beneath the magnesian limestone. 
A scientific geologist, Dr. William Smith, held a contrary 
opinion; and the result of his abstract conviction is, that 
the great English Hetton collieries have been called into 
action, which supply a vast amount of coal to the London 
market, found beneath this dreaded barrier of magnesian 
limestone. Geology—however scanty its facts at present 
are, compared with what they will be when miners have 
been accustomed to look at their operations from the scien¬ 
tific point of view—geology can tell pretty accurately in 
which strata of the earth the various metals are likely to be 
found; and knowing, to some extent, the strata of different 
countries, can judge of the probability of finding the pre¬ 
cious metals as well as the more common. Sir Roderick 
Murchison, in 1844, expressed his belief, in a public address, 
that gold existed in the great Eastern Chain of Australia. 
In 1849, an iron-worker in Australia, reading this opinion, 
searched for gold, and found it. The discovery was neg¬ 
lected, till an enterprising man came from California, and 
completed the realization of the scientific prediction. The 
importance of gold, merely as a material of manufacture, 
may be estimated from the fact that in Birmingham, En¬ 
gland, alone, a thousand ounces of fine gold are worked up 
every week; and that ten thousand ounces are annually 
used in the porcelain works of Staffordshire. 

Whatever diminishes the risk to life or health, in any 
mechanical operation, or any exertion of bodily labor, less¬ 
ens the cost of production, by diminishing the premium 
which is charged by the producers to cover the risk. The 


388 INVENTIONS THAT DIMINISH RISK. 

safety-lamp of Sir Humphrey Davy, by diminishing the 
waste of human life employed in raising coals, diminished 
the price of coals. The contrivance is a very simple one, 
though it was no doubt the result of anxious and patient 
thought. It is a common oil-lamp, in which the flame is 
surrounded with a fine wire-gauze. The flame can not pass 
through the gauze; and thus if the destructive gas of a coal-, 
mine enters the gauze and ignites, the flame can not pass 
again out of the gauze and ignite the surrounding gas. 
Sometimes the inner flame burns with a terrible blue light. 
It is the symj)tom of danger. If the lamp were an open 
flame the fire-damp would shake the pit with one dreadful 
explosion. The safety-lamp yields a feeble light; and thus, 
unfortunately, the miner sometimes exposes the flame, and 
perishes. The magnetic mask, which prevents iron-filings 
escaping down the throats of grinders and polishers, and 
thus prevents the consumption of the lungs, to which these 
trades are peculiarly obnoxious, would diminish the price of 
steel goods, if the workmen did not prefer receiving the 
premium in the shape of higher wages, to the health and 
long life which they would get, wdthout the premium, by 
the use of the mask. This is not wisdom on the part of the 
workmen. But whether they are wise or not, the natural 
and inevitable influence of the discovery, sooner or later— 
to lessen the cost of production in that trade, by lessening 
the risk of the laborers—must be established. The light¬ 
ning conductor of Franklin, which is used very generally, 
and almost universally in this country, diminishes the risk of 
property, in the same way that the safety-lamp diminishes 
the risk of life; and, by this diminution, the rate of in¬ 
surance is lessened, and the cost of production, therefore, 
lessened. 

We have given many examples of labor-saving processes 
produced by science. We may regard it as a compensating 


SCIENCE RAISING NEW EMPLOYMENTS. 


389 


principle that science is constantly raising up new employ¬ 
ments. In 1798, Galvani, an Italian physician, accidentally 
discovered that the muscles of a dead frog were convulsed 
by the body coming in contact with two metals. Soon 
after, Volta, another Italian physician, produced electric 


BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 



currents by a combination of metals in what was called the 
voltaic-pile. Who could have imagined that the patient 
working-out of the scientific principle that was evolved in 
the movement of Galvani’s dead frog, should have raised 
up new branches of human industry, of the most extensive 
and varied utility ? Galvanic batteries used to be considered 
among the toys of science. They now send an instantaneous 
message from New York to New Orleans; and fill our 
houses with the most beautiful articles of metallic manufac¬ 
ture—electro-plate. About sixteen years ago it was discov¬ 
ered that a piece of metal might receive a fine permanent 
coating of another metal by the agency of galvanism. The 



390 


GALVANISM. 


discovery created a strong interest in men of science, and 
many small experiments were tried to fix a coating of cop¬ 
per to some other metal. Manufacturing enterprise saw the 
value of the discovery, which has been simply described in 
a popular work: 

“ Diluted sulphuric acid is poured into a porous vessel; 
this is placed in a larger vessel containing a solution of 
sulphate of copper; a piece of zinc is placed in the former, 
and a piece of silver or of copper in the latter, and both 
pieces are connected by a wire. Then does the wondrous 
agent, electricity, begin its work; a current sets in from 
the zinc to the acid, thence through the porous vessel to 
the sulphate, thence to the silver or copper, and thence to 
the conducting wire back again to the zinc; and so on in 
an endless circuit. But electricity never makes such a cir¬ 
cuit without disturbing the chemical relations of the bodies 
through which it passes ; the zinc, the silver or copper, the 
sulphuric acid, the oxygen, and the hydrogen, all are so far 
affected that the zinc becomes eaten away, while a beautiful 
deposit of metallic copper, derived from the decomposition 
of the sulphate appears on the surface of the silver or cop¬ 
per. Copper is not the only metal which can be thus pre¬ 
cipitated ; gold, silver, platinum, and other metals may be 
similarly treated.” 

When experiment had proved that every imaginable form 
of cheap metal could be coated with silver or gold, by the 
agency of electro-chemistry, an immediate demand was 
created for designers, modelers, and molders. Yases of 
the most beautiful forms were to be produced in metal 
which should have the properties of solid silver without its 
costliness. The common metal vase is dipped into a tank 
containing a solution of silver. It is placed in connection 
with the wires of the galvanic battery. Atom after atom 
of the silver in solution clings to the vase, which soon 


SUNLIGHT. 


391 


comes out perfectly silvered. The burnisher completes its 
beauty. It is the same with a solution of gold. The pride 
of riches may boast the value of a solid plate, which tempts 
thieves to “ break in and steal.” The nobler gratification 
of taste may secure the beauty without the expense or risk 
of loss. 

But the great principle thus brought into practical use is 
carried further in the realms of art. It becomes a copying 
process. It can multiply copies of the most minute en¬ 
graving without in the slightest degree deteriorating the 
beauty of the engraver’s work. The copy is as good as the 
original. 

The same principle of depositing one metal upon another 
in minute atoms has produced galvanized tinned-iron—iron 
which will not rust upon exposure to weather, and thus 
applicable to many purposes of building—and iron which 
can be applied to many objects of utility with greater ad¬ 
vantage than tin-plate. 

There are few persons now without their daguerreotype 
portraits of some member of the family. This is a portrait 
copied from the human face by a simbeam. The name 
daguerreotype is derived from the Frenchman Daguerre, 
the discoverer. We notice this branch of recent invention 
merely to point out how science and art call forth mechani¬ 
cal labor. When every house has its little portrait, there 
will naturally be a great demand for frames. The manufac¬ 
ture of daguerreotype-frames in the United States, has 
furnished a new field of employment. 

Every scientific discovery, such as photography, is a step 
in advance of preceding discovery. If Newton had not 
discovered the fundamental properties of light, in the 
seventeenth century, we should, in all likelihood, have had 
no photography in the nineteenth. Abstract science is the 
parent of practical art. 


392 


MENTAL LABORERS. 


“ Arago affirms that men will learn to speak of the age of 
Papin or of Watt as they now speak of the ages of kings 
and warriors. The monarch may distinguish his rule by 
advancing his people in civilization ; the warrior may strike 
off bonds from the limbs of slaves, or scatter in the fields 
of conquest the seeds of literature and art; but the man 
who gives to the world a new power, and teaches his breth¬ 
ren how to wield it, has a royalty of his own, and deserves 
that ‘Hero Worship’ which enthusiasts offer at the shrine 
of greatness. 

“Newton, by developing the laws of gravitation; Frank¬ 
lin, by drawing lightning from the clouds; and James Watt, 
by his discoveries of the relations of heat and steam, stand* 
toward the world in the attitude of creators. They have 
been the instruments through which truths have been 
brought into the world—and these truths have exalted 
man’s intelligence and increased his power. 

“ Newton’s great truth has had its application in every 
branch of mechanical science. The falling apple took root 
in the soil. The clock which beats the passing moments, 
the machine employed to drive the pile, and the science of 
projectile forces—now so important to Europe and the world 
—are some of the fruits gathered from the tree which 
sprang from that falling apple. Newton gave us, in the 
truth which he discovered, a balance in which to weigh the 
planets of our system, and the sun around which they re¬ 
volve. Franklin, with his wonderful kite, realized the 
poetic fable of Prometheus—he stole the fire from heaven. 
But greater than Prometheus, he subdued the spirit of the 
storm, and taught mankind to protect themselves from the 
torrents of his wrath. The slender thread of Franklin’s 
kite, along which the lightning traveled, was the line from 
which has been derived the electrical wire, which now con¬ 
veys men’s thoughts and wishes over land and under ocean.” 


MENTAL LABORERS. 


393 


It has been said by one of our eminent writers, that the 
“ man who will go into a cotton-mill—who will observe the 
parts of the machinery, and the various processes of the 
fabric, till he reaches the hydraulic press, with which it is 
made into a bale, and the canal or rail-road by which it is 
sent to market, may find every branch of trade, and every 



SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 


department of science, literally crossed, intertwined, inter¬ 
woven with every other, like the woof and warp of the 
article manufactured.”* This crossing and intertwining of 
the abstract and practical sciences, the mechanical skill and 
the manual labor, which are so striking in the manufacture 
of a piece of calico, prevail throughout every department 
of industry in a highly civilized community. Every one 
who labors at all profitably, labors for the production of 
utility, and sets in motion the labor of others. Look at the 

* “Everett’s Working Man’s Party.” Printed in the American Library 
of Useful knowledge, 1831. 


17 


394 


MENTAL LABORERS. 


labor of the medical profession. In the fourteenth century, 
John de Gaddesden treated a son of Edward II. for the 
small-pox by wrapping him up in scarlet cloth, and hanging 
scarlet curtains round his bed; and as a remedy for epi¬ 
lepsy, the same physician carried his patients to church to 
hear mass. The medical art was so little understood in 
those days that the professors of medicine had made no im¬ 
pression upon the understanding of the people; and they, 
consequently, trusted not to medicine, but to vain charms, 
which superstitions the ignorance of the practitioners them¬ 
selves kept alive. The surgical practitioners of Europe, at 
the beginning of the sixteenth century, put their unhappy 
patients to the most dreadful torture by their mode of treat¬ 
ing wounds and broken limbs. When they amputated a 
leg or an arm they applied the actual cautery, or red-hot 
iron, to stop the effusion of blood. Ambrose Pare, one of 
the most eminent of the French surgeons of that period, 
who accompanied the army to the siege of Turin, in 1536, 
thus describes the mode in which he found his surgical 
brethren dealing with gunshot wounds : 

“ I was then very raw and inexperiened, having never 
seen the treatment of gunshot wounds. It is true that I 
had read in the Treatise of Jean de Vigo on wounds in gen¬ 
eral, that those inflicted by fire-arms partake of a poisonous 
nature on account of the powder, and that they should be 
treated with hot oil of elder, mixed with a little theriacum. 
Seeing, therefore, that such an application must needs put 
the patient to extreme pain, to assure myself before I should 
make use of this boiling oil, I desired to see how it was em¬ 
ployed by the other surgeons. I found their method was 
to apply it at the first dressing, as hot as possible, within 
the wounds, with tents and setons; and this I made bold to 
do likewise. At length my oil failed me, and I was fain to 
substitute a digestive, made of the yolk of eggs, rose-oil, 


MENTAL LABORERS. 


395 


and turpentine. At night I could not rest in my bed in 
peace, fearing that I should find the wounded, in whose 
cases I had been compelled to abstain from using this cau¬ 
tery, dead of poison: this apprehension made me rise very 
early in the morning to visit them; but beyond all my hopes, 
I found those to whom I had applied the digestive, suffering 
little pain, and their wounds free from inflammation; and 
they had been refreshed by sleep in the night. On the 
contrary, I found those to whom the aforesaid oil had been 
applied, feverish, in great pain, and with swelling and in¬ 
flammation round their wounds. I resolved, therefore, that 
I would never burn unfortunate sufferers from gunshot in 
that cruel manner again.” Francis I., king of France, hav¬ 
ing a persuasion that, because the Jews were the most skill¬ 
ful physicians of that day, the virtue was in the Jew, and 
not in the science which he professed, sent to Charles V. of 
Spain for a Jewish physician; but finding that the man who 
arrived had been converted to Christianity, he refused to 
employ him, thinking the virtue of healing had therefore 
departed from him. A statute of Henry VIII. says, “ For 
as much as the science and cunning of physic and surgery 
is daily within this realm exercised by a great multitude of 
ignorant persons, of whom the greater part have no insight 
in the same, nor in any other kind of learning: some, also, 
con no letters on the book, so far forth, that common artifi¬ 
cers, as smiths, and weavers, and women, boldly and accus- 
tomably, take upon them great cures, in which they partly 
use sorcery and witchcraft, partly apply such medicines to 
the disease as be very noxious, and nothing meet, to the 
high displeasure of God, great infamy to the faculty, and 
the grievous damage and destruction of diverse of the 
king’s people.” When such ignorance prevailed, diseases of 
the slightest kind must have been very often fatal; and the 
power of all men to labor profitably must have been greatly 


396 


MENTAL LABORERS. 


diminished by the ravages of sickness. These ravages are 
now checked by medical science and medical labor. 

But even within our own times how greatly has general 
ignorance retarded the exertions of medical science to di¬ 
minish suffering and to reduce the amount of mortality! 
The prejudices against vaccination have rendered it ex¬ 
tremely difficult to eradicate small-pox, however certain the 
result of the great discovery of Jenner. According to the 
recent laws of several States, all children hereafter must be 
vaccinated at the public expense. Such a law would have 
been very difficult of execution fifty years ago. The people 
had then seen the scarred faces from small-pox disappearing 
among them. They had learned that, at the beginning of 
this century, vaccination, or the puncture of the skin with 
matter originally obtained from the cow, was rooting out 
the small-pox, which used to destroy, not more than a hun¬ 
dred years ago, thirty-six thousand persons annually, in 
Great Britain. And yet many ignorant persons will not 
avail themselves of laws, under which their children might 
be vaccinated at the public cost. The undoubted testimony 
of the whole medical profession proves that vaccination in 
almost all cases prevents small-pox, and in all cases miti¬ 
gates its evil. But that testimony further proves that if 
vaccination were universal, small-pox would wholly disap¬ 
pear ; and that is the reason why vaccination is now com¬ 
pulsory. 

But we may regard the influences of knowledge upon the 
direction and aid of profitable labor, even from a higher 
point of view. The sciences and arts can not be carried 
forward except in a country where the laws of God are re¬ 
spected, where justice is upheld, where intellect generally 
is cultivated, and taste is diffused. The religious and moral 
teacher, therefore, who lifts the mind to a contemplation of 
the duties of man, as they are founded upon a belief in the 


MENTAL LABORERS. 


397 


Providence of an all-wise and all-powerful Creator, is a prof¬ 
itable laborer. The instructor of the young, who dedicates 
his time to advancing the formation of the right principles, 
and the acquirement of sound knowledge, by his pupils, is a 
profitable laborer. The writer who applies his understand¬ 
ing to the discovery and dissemination of moral and politi¬ 
cal truth, is a profitable laborer. The interpreter and 
administrator of the laws, who upholds the reign of order 
and security, defending the innocent, punishing the guilty, 
and vindicating the rights of all from outrage and oppress¬ 
ion, is a profitable laborer. These laborers, it may be said, 
are still direct producers of utility, but that those who ad¬ 
dress themselves to the imagination—the poets, the novel¬ 
ists, the painters, and the musicians—in every polished 
society, are unprofitable laborers. One word is sufficient 
for an answer. These men - advance the general intellect of 
a country, and they therefore indirectly advance the pro¬ 
duction of articles of necessity. We have already shown 
how the study of the higher mathematics, upon which as¬ 
tronomy is founded, as an influence upon the production of 
a piece of woolen cloth; and we beg our readers to bear 
this connection in mind when they hear it said, as they 
sometimes may, that an abstract student, or an elegant 
writer, is not a producer—is, in fact, an idler. The most 
illustrious writers of every country, the great poets, 

“High actions and high passions best describing,” 

have, next to the inspirations of religion, lifted mankind, 
more than any other class of intellectual workmen, to their 
noblest pursuits of knowledge and virtue. Even those who 
especially devote themselves to give pleasure and amuse-, 
ment, call into action some of the highest and purest sources 
of enjoyment. They lead the mind to seek its recreations 
in more ennobling pursuits than those of sensuality; their 


398 


MENTAL LABORERS. 


arts connect themselves by a thousand associations with all 
that is beautiful in the natural world; they are as useful for 
the promotion of pure and innocent delight as the flowers 
that gladden us by their beauty and fragrance by the side 
of the corn that nourishes us. An entire community of 
poets and artists would be as unprofitable as if an entire 
country were dedicated to the cultivation of violets and 
roses; but the poets and the artists may, as the roses and 
the violets, furnish the graces and ornaments of life, with¬ 
out injury, and indeed with positive benefit, to the classes 
who more especially dedicate themselves to what is some¬ 
what exclusively called the productions of utility. The 
right direction of the talents which are dedicated to art and 
literature is all that is required from those who address 
themselves to these pursuits. He, therefore, who beguiles 
a vacant hour of its tediousness, by some effort of intellect 
which captivates the imagination without poisoning the 
morals—and he who by the exercise of his art produces 
forms of beauty which awaken in the mind that principle of 
taste which, more than any other faculty, requires cultiva¬ 
tion—have each bestowed benefits upon the world which 
may be accurately enough measured even by the severe 
limitations of political economy ; they are profitable laborers 
and benefactors of their species. 

The positive influence of the labors of the poet and the 
artist upon the advance of other labor might be easily 
shown. In their productions, especially, supply goes before 
demand, and creates demand. It has been calculated by an 
American writer, that the number of workmen who have 
been set in action—paper-makers, printers, binders—by the 
writings of Sir Walter Scott alone, in all countries, would, 
if gathered together, form a community that would fill a 
large town. The Potteries of Staffordshire, England, could 
not have existed unless Mr. Wedgwood had introduced into 


MENTAL LABORERS. 


399 


the manufacture of china the forms of Grecian art, be¬ 
queathed to us by the taste of two thousand years ago, and 
thus created a demand which has furnished profitable labor 
to thousands. There are 21,000 pianoes made in the United 
States each year, affording employment to upward of 3,500 
workmen. What has given this branch of industry its 
chief impulse ? The divine art of Handel, Mozart, Beet¬ 
hoven, Weber, Rossini, Mendelsohn. If these great com¬ 
posers, and many others, had not raised music into some¬ 
thing higher and more capable of producing enjoyment 
than the rude melodies of uncivilized tribes, there would 
have been no trade in piano-fortes. 

We have entered into these details, principally to show 
that there are other and higher producers in society than 
the mere manual laborers. It was an ignorant fashion 
among the mental laborers of other days to despise the 
class of the physical laborers. They have learned to know 
their value; and there should be a reciprocal knowledge. 
Both classes are working-classes. No one can say that the 
mental laborers are not workers. They are, we may truly 
affirm, taken as a class, the hardest workers in the com¬ 
munity. No one ever reached eminence in these pursuits 
without unwearied industry: the most eminent have been 
universally despisers of ease and sloth, and have felt their 
highest pleasures in the absorbing devotion of their entire 
minds to the duties of their high calling. They have wooed 
Knowledge as a mistress that could not be won without 
years of unwearied assiduity. The most eminent, too, have 
been practical men, despising no inquiry, however trifling it 
might appear to common eyes, and shrinking from no occu¬ 
pation, however tedious, as long as it was connected with 
their higher duties. 

There is no higher duty than that of endeavoring so to 
lead public opinion, as that the general mind of the com- 


400 


EASTERN STORY. 


munity shall be directed to noble and unselfish ends. The 
poet, the historian, the essayist, the novelist, have the 
responsibility of keeping alive the love of freedom, the 
hatred of oppression, the cultivation of Christian charity. 
There never was a truly great nation that had a low litera¬ 
ture. It is the glory of the Anglo-Saxon race that its litera¬ 
ture is among its best possessions; and that the general 
scope and tendency of that literature are calculated to raise 
and cherish an enlightened public sentiment. Whatever be 
the amount of national wealth—however various the com¬ 
forts and luxuries which private riches may command—it 
is quite certain that without that courage and intelligence 
which make a people free and keep them so, the public 
and private accumulations are comparatively worthless. 
There is a beautiful Eastern story which may better illus¬ 
trate this position than any lengthened argument.* 

“ It is related that a man of the pilgrims slept a long 
sleep, and then awoke, and saw no trace of the other 
pilgrims. So he arose and walked on; but he wandered 
from the way, and he proceeded until he saw a tent, and 
an old woman at its door, and he found by her a dog asleep. 
He approached the tent, saluted the old woman, and begged 
of her some food; whereupon she said to him, Go to yon 
valley, and catch as many serpents as will suffice thee, that 
I may broil some of them for thee. The man replied, 
I dare not catch serpents, and I never ate them. The old 
woman therefore said, I will go with thee, and catch some 
of them, and ferfr thou not. Then she went with him, and 
the dog followed her, and she caught as many of the ser¬ 
pents as would suffice, and proceeded to broil some of them. 
The pilgrim could not refrain from eating; for he feared 
hunger and emaciation: so he ate of those serpents. And 

* Note in Mr. Lane’s admirable translation of the “ Thousand and One 
Nights,” original edition, vol. ii. p. 635 . 


EASTERN STORY. 


401 


after this, being thirsty, he demanded of the old woman 
some water to drink; and she said to him, Go to the spring, 
and drink of it. Accordingly he went to the spring ; but 
he found its water bitter; yet he could not refrain from 
drinking of it, notwithstanding its exceeding bitterness, on 
account of the violence of his thirst. He therefore drank, 
and then returned to the old woman, and said to her, I 
wonder at thee, O thou old woman, and at thy residing in 
this place, and thy feeding thyself with this food, and thy 
drinking of this water. How then, said the old woman, 
is your country? He answered her, Verily, in our country 
are spacious and ample houses, and ripe and delicious 
fruits, and abundant sweet waters, and excellent viands, 
and fat meats, and numerous sheep, and every thing good, 
and blessings of which the like exist not save in the Para¬ 
dise that God (whose name be exalted!) hath described to 
his just servants. All this, replied the old woman, I have 
heard; but tell me, have you any Sultan who ruleth over 
you, and oppressed in his rule while ye are under his 
authority; and who, if any one of you committeth an 
offense, taketh his wealth, and destroyeth him, and who, 
if he desire, turneth you out from your houses, and eradi¬ 
cated you utterly? The man answered her, That doth 
sometimes happen. And the old woman rejoined, If so, 
by Allah, that dainty food and elegant life, and those de¬ 
lightful comforts, with oppression and tyranny, are pene¬ 
trating poison; and our food, with safety, is a salutary 
antidote.” 



MONUMENT OF LORD BACON. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

\ 


INVENTION OF PRINTING.—EFFECTS OF THAT ART.—A DAILY NEWSPAPER.—PROVIN¬ 
CIAL NEWSPAPERS.—NEWS-WRITING OF FORMER PERIODS.—CHANGES IN TIIE 
CHARACTER OF NEWSPAPERS.—STEAM CONVEYANCE.—ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.— 
ORGANIZATION OF A NEWSPAPER-OFFICE.—THE PRINTING-MACHINE.—THE PAPER- 
MACHINE.—BOOKBINDING. 


The art of printing offers one of the readiest and most 
forcible illustrations of the advantages that have been be¬ 
stowed upon the world by scientific discovery and by me¬ 
chanical power. Although there is, happily, little occasion 





















































































EFFECTS OF THE INTENTION OF PRINTING. 403 

now to combat any wide-spread hostility to machinery, the 
argument for its use derived from printing may be very 
briefly stated. 

It is nearly four hundred years since the art of printing 
books was invented. Before that time all books were writ¬ 
ten by the hand. There were many persons employed to 
copy out books, but they were very dear, although the 
copiers had small wages. A Bible was sold for thirty 
pounds in the money of that day, which was equal to a 
great deal more of our money. Of course, very few people 
had Bibles or any other books. A mode was invented of 
imitating the written books by cutting the letters on wood, 
and taking off copies from the wooden blocks by rubbing 
the sheet on the back. Soon after, the idea was carried 
further by casting metal types or letters, which could be 
arranged in words, and sentences, and pages, and volumes; 
and then a machine, called a printing-press, upon the prin¬ 
ciple of a screw, was made to stamp impressions of these 
types so arranged. There was an end, then, at once to the 
trade of the pen-and-ink copiers; because the copiers in 
types, who could press off several hundred books while the 
writers were producing one, drove them out of the market. 
A single printer could do the work of at least two hundred 
writers. At first sight this seems a hardship, for a hundred 
and ninety-nine people might have been, and probably were, 
thrown out of their accustomed employment. But what 
was the consequence in a year or two ? Where one writ¬ 
ten book was sold, a thousand printed books were required. 
The old books were multiplied in all countries, and new 
books were composed by men of talent and learning, be¬ 
cause they could then find numerous readers. The printing- 
press did the work more neatly and more correctly than the 
writer, and it did it infinitely cheaper. What then ? The 
writers of books had to turn their hands to some other trade, 


404 


A DAILY NEWSPAPER. 


it is true; but type-founders, paper-makers, printers, and 
bookbinders, were set to work, by the new art or machine, 
to at least a hundred times greater number of persons than 
the old way of making books employed. 

But there is a far more important mode of viewing this 
matter than any consideration resulting out of the increased 
employment that the art of printing unquestionably has 
created. If printing, which is a cheap and a rapid process, 
could by possibility be superseded by writing, which is an 
expensive and a slow operation, no book, no newspaper, 
could be produced for the use of the people. Knowledge, 
upon which every hope of bettering their condition must 
ultimately rest, woulcL again become the property of a very 
few; and mankind would lose the greater part of that power 
which constitutes the essential difference between civilization 
and barbarism. The art of printing has gone on more and 
more adapting itself to the increase of our population, during 
the three centuries and a half in which it has been exercised 
in this country. Herein consists, perhaps, one of the might¬ 
iest differences between our condition and that of every 
generation which has preceded us. Through that art, no 
idea can now perish. Through that art, knowledge is fast 
becoming the common possession of all. Through that art, 
what the people have gained in the past is secured for the 
future. It has established the empire of public opinion. 

There is possibly no more striking example of the mani¬ 
fold combinations of mental labor, of scientific power, of 
mechanical invention, and of the use of rapid means of com¬ 
munication, than the forces now called into action for the 
issue of a daily newspaper. Nor is there any production of 
literary industry which more pointedly illustrates the dis¬ 
tinctive qualities of printing as compared with writing—the 
rapidity, the cheapness, and the general diffusion. Let us 
endeavor to supply a rapid sketch of the wonderful organi- 


EDITORIAL DUTIES. 


405 


zation that is required to produce this great necessary 01 
modern society. 

The essential characteristic of a newspaper is news. It 
may he philosophical, or critical, or imaginative; it may 
pour forth treasures of learning or eloquence, to live but a 
few hours and then be too readily forgotten; but no 
amount of ability will give it currency if it be deficient in 
news. It is the imperative demand for news, embracing 
every movement of human life in every class and every 
country, that sets in action the wondrous organization that 
produces a daily newspaper. Its ministers of communica¬ 
tion are almost ubiquitous. They are in the police-office, 
watching the effrontery of the detected felon; they are on 
the battle-fields of Mexico and the Crimea, to stir our hearts 
“ as with a trumpet,” and fill our eyes with tears as they 
tell us 

“ How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, 

By all their country’s wishes blest.” 

They are at the city feast, where all is blandishment and 
turtle; they are at the coroner’s inquest upon a street- 
starved pauper. They furnish news to all the world; and 
they receive news from all the world. 

The editors of a leading daily paper have the not very 
easy task of glancing over the multitude of local papers 
from different sections of the United States. These are, in 
ordinary cases, the vehicles from which they obtain their 
intelligence. If any local matter of general interest is to 
be specially attended to, their own correspondent, or their 
own reporter, furnishes the details. Some unexpected 
eveiit puts the electric telegraph in motion, to tell the 
world of New York, on Saturday morning, what occurred 
at Boston or New Orleans on Friday night; and the Boston 
or New Orleans merchant reads on Saturday morning in a 


406 


COUNTRY NEWSPAPERS. 


newspaper printed in his own city, some notice of an arrival 
in New York during the hours when he was sleeping. Even 
the state of the weather at different parts of the country is 
thus daily transmitted. But the editors of leading papers 
have to look out for news at a greater distance than is com¬ 
prised in our boundaries. They have to search the papers 
of every land and every people—whether written in English, 
French, German, Italian, Greek, or Turkish. For the New 
York daily papers the electric telegraph is “ throwing its 
shadows” before the authentic heralds of “ coming events.” 
For them is the steamer bringing the special correspond¬ 
ence from the gold-diggings in California, and from the 
courts of Europe. For them do the people’s representatives 
make long speeches to empty benches, secure that there is 
a medium of communication for unnumbered eyes, although 
the ears be shut of those who listen not to the voice of the 
charmers. For them do public men go into obscure places, 
and, addressing an enthusiastic dinner-table, or a solemn 
convention, speak to the world. For them does every dis¬ 
coverer of a private grievance claim public redress. For 
them is produced, in letters “to the editor,” that great 
chaotic accumulation of fact and theory, of wisdom and 
folly, of calculation and impulse, whose atoms finally resolve 
themselves into a solid mass called public opinion. 

The mental labors attendant upon the country newspapers 
are more narrowed. But they are, nevertheless, very im¬ 
portant ; and the extension of their functions by the enor¬ 
mous extension of the facilities for obtaining intelligence is 
equally striking. The old county papers, circulating stead¬ 
ily through the rural districts, and duly chronicling deaths 
and marriages, markets and misdemeanors, have been stirred 
into activity by newspapers issuing from great commercial 
and manufacturing centers, which have arisen with the im¬ 
mense development of our industry. The local changes in 


CHANGES IN NEWSPAPERS. 


401 

these vehicles of intelligence are strikingly connected with 
the other great social changes which have been noticed in 
this volume. It is satisfactory to know that the country 
press is no imperfect representative of an age of progress. 

The history of news-writing and news-publishing is a 
mirror of many of the changes in social necessities and 
conveniences. In 1625, Ben Jonson’s play of “ The Staple 



of News” exhibited a countrywoman going to an office of 
news, and saying to the manager, who sits in state with his 
registers and examiners— 

“ I would have, sir, 

A groatsworth of any news, I care not what, 

To carry down this Saturday to our vicar.” 

This was written news. In London, before a newspaper 
existed, there were private gazetteers, who made a living 
by picking up* scraps of intelligence in taverns and barbers’ 


408 


EXTERN AX COMMUNICATION. 


shops. This class of persons continued even when there 
were newspapers; for the news-letter, as it was called, is 
thus described in the first number of the “ Evening Post,” 
issued in 1709:—“There must be £3 or £4 per annum paid 
by those gentlemen that are out of town for written news, 
which is so far generally from having any probability or 
matter of fact in it, that it is frequently stuffed up with a 
‘We hear,’ or 4 An eminent Jew merchant has received a 
letter.’” The same “Evening Post” adds—“We read 
more of our own affairs in the Dutch papers than in any of 
our own.” Sir Roger L’Estrange, who published “ The 
Intelligencer,” with privilege, in 1663, says that he shall 
publish once a week, “ to be published every Thursday, 
and finished upon the Tuesday night, leaving Wednesday 
entire for the printing it off.” The first advertisement in 
an English paper appeared in 1649. 

At the beginning of the present century the public used 
to look with wonder upon their “ folio of four pages,” and 
contrast it with the scanty chronicles of more ancient days. 
We of the present time,, in the same way, contrast our 
newspapers with the meager records of the beginning of 
the century. The essential difference has been produced 
by steam navigation, by rail-ways, by the extension of the 
post, dependent upon both applications of steam and by 
the electric telegraph. The same scientific forces and ad¬ 
ministrative organization that bring the written news from 
every region of the earth, re-convey the printed news to 
every region. With this certain and rapid intercourse, it 
is not likely that the least enterprising newspaper editor 
would have to repeat the doubt of L’Estrange, who says, 
“ Once a week may do the business; yet if I shall find, 
when my hand is in, and after the planting and securing my 
correspondents, that the matter will fairly furnish more, I 
shall keep myself free to double at pleasure.” 


NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENTS. 


409 


It is the external communication so wonderful in our own 
times, we repeat, which has chiefly changed the character 
of our newspapers. When we read in a London daily paper 
the one line—“ The Overland Mail—by electric telegraph” 
—we have two facts of the highest significance. “ The 
Overland Mail” would appear, of itself, a marvel great 
enough for one age. The Overland Mail has brought 
London wdthin a month, and New York within six weeks 
of Bombay. It has joined India most effectually to En¬ 
gland for all commercial and state purposes. It gives En 
gland the news of India, by the aid of the electric tele¬ 
graph, in as little time as news was ordinarily received 
from Vienna at the beginning of the eighteenth century 
The steamer and the electric telegraph made the blood of 
England beat quicker in every heart, when the newspapers 
recorded, on the 13th of November, the most sanguinary 
battle of modern times, fought in the Crimea only a week 
previous. When Marlborough was setting out for his cam¬ 
paign of 1709, and so many political, if not patriotic, hopes, 
were fixed upon the probable issue, “ The Tatler,” then a 
newspaper, had the following paragraph; “We learn from 
Brussels, by letters dated the 20th, that on the 14th, in the 
evening, the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene 
arrived at Courtray, with a design to proceed the day fol¬ 
lowing to Lisle, in the neighborhood of which city the con¬ 
federate army was to arrive the same day.” The account of 
the movement of the great allied generals was transmitted 
from Brussels six days after the movement had taken place, 
Courtray being only distant forty-six miles; and the im¬ 
portant news from Brussels, of the 20th May, was published 
in London on the 28th, London being distant some two 
hundred and fifty miles. The distance from Balaklava to 
London is about three thousand miles. 

The function of a great newspaper, in connection with 
13 


410 


NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENTS. 


the positions of armies and the events of siege and battle, 
is as different from the function of the journalist of fifty 
years ago, as the rapid firing of the modern soldier with his 
Minie rifle contrasts with the slow evolutions of the old 
hand-gunner. In the war of the Allies with Russia the 
presence of the newspaper reporter gives a new feature, 
strikingly characteristic of our times and our progress. It 
was necessary to have the earliest and the most detailed ac¬ 
counts of this eventful contest; for the people of Great 
Britain, one and all, understood that they are deeply inter¬ 
ested in its issue, and that, if their country failed to assert 
its superiority, the material prosperity of that country could 
be of no long duration. Wisely, therefore, did the London 
daily papers each send their active, fearless, and eloquent 
correspondents, to endure some of the hardships of the 
march and the bivouac—to observe the battle-field, not 
secure from its dangers—to write of victories, surrounded 
by the dead and dying—to be the historians of a day, and 
thus to furnish the best materials for all future historians. 
The life of a reporter, although a life of constant labor, is 
generally accompanied by much ease and comfort. The 
senate does not acknowledge his presence; but it provides 
the “ stranger” with the best seat. He takes his place ,at 
the public dinner as an honored guest—one whose absence 
would be more regretted than that of the city’s mayor or 
the representative in congress. But in a campaign, like 
that of the Valley of Mexico, or in the Crimea, where his 
duties are new, he must fight his way through every diffi¬ 
culty. His function is recognized in an age when it would 
be useless to suppress intelligence, even if it were possible. 
He finds a ready mess in every tent where a scanty meal is 
set out; he stands by the side of the commander, and gazes 
with him upon “ the currents of the heady fight.” How 
he wears after two months of unusual service we have some 


THE CARRIER-PIGEON AND THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 411 

slight notion, when we read, in a letter to “ The Times ” of 
November 30, 1854, that the writer had seen an officer who 
had lately parted from the special • correspondent. “ The 
chances of war had deprived him of nearly all his garments; 
and when last seen he was walking about in a rifleman’s 
jacket, much too small for his portly person; and his nether 
garments had been converted into breeches by a constant 
scrambling among rocks and briers.” Let us not forget 
our obligations to the men who, in peril and suffering, have 
made heroic action more familiar to us; and have contrib¬ 
uted no mean part in giving a moral impulse to our coun¬ 
try, as essential to future safety and honor as the material 
wealth which has made us a people among the foremost of 
the earth. 

What the carrier-pigeon was in the conveyance of intelli¬ 
gence in the middle ages, and even within a few years, the 
electric telegraph is in the present day. The carrier-pigeon 
went out from a besieged castle, to ask for succor, in east¬ 
ern countries, five centuries ago. The electric telegraph, 
land and submarine, brings the tidings of slaughter and 
sickness from Sebastopol, and England and France send in¬ 
stant reinforcements. The carrier-pigeon, in the last cen¬ 
tury, was dispatched by the merchants of the English 
factory, from Scanderoon to Aleppo, to announce the arrival 
of the company’s ships. The electric telegraph communi¬ 
cates to New Orleans the arrival of an English steamer at 
New York or Halifax. Within the last ten years, one of 
the annual expenses of a London newspaper was $9,000 
for pigeon expresses. The pigeons have now lost their 
employment. The carrier-pigeon traveled sixty miles an 
hour. The time which it takes to transmit a message by 
electric telegraph is inappreciable. The newspapers of the 
United States employ the electric telegraph far more exten¬ 
sively than the English papers. The distance between 


412 


A NEW YORK NEWSPAPER-OFFICE. 


Quebec and New Orleans, a distance of three thousand 
miles, is overleaped by the electric telegraph. Two lines, 
each two thousand miles long, connect New York with 
New Orleans ; and over this space messages are transmitted, 
and answers received, in three hours. When we read long 
paragraphs in the morning papers, received by electric tele¬ 
graph, after midnight, from Halifax, we wonder how this is 
accomplished. Eighteen words, which are equal to about 
two newspaper lines, are transmitted every minute; and 
the full message from Halifax, containing the steamer’s 
news, carefully transcribed, is in the hands of the newspaper 
editor in half an hour. Furthermore, we may now almost 
predict with certainty, that within the next ten years, the 
people of the United States will read in the morning papers 
the events which took place the day before in England, and 
all important points on the continent of Europe ; and that 
the daily sale of stocks upon the Exchange of London or the 
Bourse of Paris, will be reported side by side with those 
of Wall-street in New York. 

To carry out all this scientific conquest of time and space, 
by the most perfect mental and mechanical arrangements 
in the newspaper office itself, appears, at first sight, almost 
as great a wonder as the rapid communication. Nothing 
but the most perfect organization of the division of labor 
could accomplish the feat. 

There is, after midnight, in the office of a morning paper, 
a constant necessity for adapting the labor of every quarter 
of an hour to the requirements of the instant time. Much 
of the newspaper matter may have been in type in the 
evening ; some portion may be quite ready for printing off. 
But new necessities may derange much of this prepara¬ 
tion. Suppose a steamer arrives, or a session of Congress 
is unexpectedly prolonged into the night. Column after 
column of information is poured in. Smaller matter must 


THE POINTING-MACHINE. 


413 


give way to greater. The intelligence that will keep 
is put aside for the information that is pressing. The 
session is prolonged till one or two o’clock, and the paper 
is approaching its completion. But an electric telegraph 
communication has arrived—perhaps an important express. 
Away goes more news. Advertisements, law reports, po¬ 
lice reports, correspondence—all retire into obscurity for 
one day. There is plenty of manipulating power in the 
great body of compositors to effect these changes. But 
not in any department is there any apparent hustle. Nor 
is there any neglect in the labors that wait upon the 
work of the compositors. One word is not put for an¬ 
other. The readers are as vigilant to correct every error 
—to have no false spelling and no inaccurate punctuation— 
as if they were bestowing their vigilance upon a book to 
be published next season. The reporters are as careful to 
make no slips which would indicate a want of knowledge, 
as if they were calmly writing in their libraries after break¬ 
fast. The one-presiding mind of the editor is watchful 
over all. At four or five o’clock the morning paper goes to 
press. 

But there are many hundred copies to be dispatched by 
the morning mails and expresses. The merchant, banker, 
lawyer, would go unwillingly to his morning labor, if he 
had not had one passing glance at the discussion in the 
House, the state of the money-market, the last foreign in¬ 
telligence. Late as the paper may have been in its mental 
completion, the distant country, and the city itself, will not 
be kept without that illumination which has become almost 
as necessary as sunlight. Machinery has been created by 
the demand, to carry the demand further than the warmest 
imagination could have anticipated, In 1814, Koenig, a 
German, erected the first printing-machine at the London 
“Times” office, and produced eighteen hundred impressions 


414 


THE PRINTING-MACHESTE. 


an hour on one side. The machine superseded the dupli¬ 
cates of the type which were once necessary, painfully and 
laboriously to keep up a small supply, worked by men, with 
relays, at the rate of five hundred an hour. 



hoe’s cylinder printing-press. 


Koenig’s machine, which was a very complicated instru¬ 
ment, was supplanted at the “ Times ” office by Applegath’s 
and Cowper’s machine, which printed four thousand sheets 
an hour on one side. But that has been surpassed by Hoe’s 
Rotary Printing-Press, which prints twenty thousand copies 
an hour on one side. The separate columns of the type are 
placed on a large type-drum, and firmly secured. The 



















THE PAPER-MACIIINE. 


415 


drum is surrounded by eight impressing cylinders; the ink 
is applied to the surface of the type by rollers which work 
between these cylinders; and the sheets are laid on upon 
eight tables, which, by a most ingenious mechanism, carry 
each sheet to a point where its position is suddenly changed, 
and it is impressed between the type and the cylinder; the 
paper being then suspended by tapes, from which it is re¬ 
leased as it passes forward, to be laid upon the heap which 
will be scattered, in a few hours, to every portion of the 
country. 

The printing-machines, which have been in full operation 
for little more than twenty years, have called into action an 
amount of employment which was almost wholly unknown 
when knowledge was for the few. Paper-makers, type¬ 
founders, wood-engravers, bookbinders, booksellers, have 
been raised up by this extension of the art of printing, in 
numbers which far exceed those of any former period. 

But the printing -machine would have worked feebly and 
imperfectly without the paper-machine. That most com¬ 
plete invention has not only cheapened paper itself, but it 
has cheapened the subsequent operations of printing, in a 
remarkable degree. It has enabled one revolution of the 
cylinder of the printing machine to produce four sheets 
instead of one, or a surface of print equal to four sheets. 
When paper was altogether made by hand, the usual paper 
for books was called demy; and a sheet of demy produced 
sixteen octavo pages of a book. The paper could not have 
been economically made larger by hand. A sheet of paper 
equal to four sheets of demy is now worked at the newspa¬ 
per machine; and sixty-four pages of an octavo book might 
be so worked, if it were needful for cheapening production. 
Double demy is constantly worked for books. Thus, one 
economical arrangement of science produces another con¬ 
trivance; and machines^ in one direction combine with 


416 


THE PAPER-MACHINE. 


machines having a different object, to produce legitimate 
cheapness, injurious to no one, but beneficial to all. 

Let us attempt to convey a notion of the beautiful opera¬ 
tions of the paper-machine. 

In the whole range of machinery, there is perhaps, no 
series of contrivances which so forcibly address themselves 
to the senses. There is nothing mysterious in the opera¬ 
tion ; we at once see the beginning and the end of it. At 
one extremity of the long range of wheels and cylinders we 
are shown a stream of pulp, not thicker than milk and water, 
flowing over a moving plane; at the other extremity the 
same stream has not only become perfectly solid, but is 
wound upon a reel in the form of hard and smooth paper. 
This is, at first sight, as miraculous as any of the fancies 
of an Arabian tale. Aladdin’s wonderful lamp, by which a 
palace was built in a night, did not in truth produce more 
extraordinary effects than science has done with the paper- 
machine. 

At one extremity of the machine is a chest, full of stuff 
or pulp. We mount the steps by its side, and see a long 
beam rolling incessantly round this capacious vessel, and 
thus keeping the fibers of rags, which look like snow flakes, 
perpetually moving, and consequently equally suspended, in 
the water. At the bottom of the chest, and above the vat, 
there is a cock through which we observe a continuous 
stream of pulp flowing into the vat; which is always, there¬ 
fore, filled to a certain height. From the upper to the 
lower part of this vat a portion of the pulp flows upon a 
narrow wire frame, which constantly jumps up and down 
with a clacking noise. Having passed through the sifter, 
the pulp flows still onward to a ledge, over which it falls in 
a regular stream, like a sheet of water over a smooth dam. 
Here we see it caught upon a plane, which presents an un¬ 
interrupted surface of five or six feet, upon which the pulp 


THE PAPER-MACHINE. 


41V 


seems evenly spread, as a napkin npon a table. A more 
accurate inspection shows us that this plane is constantly 
moving onward with a gradual pace; that it has also a 
shaking motion from side to side " and that it is perforated 
all over with little holes—in fact, that it is an endless web 
of the finest wire. If we touch the pulp at the end of the 
plane, upon which it first descends, we find it fluid; if we 
draw the finger over its edge at the other end, we perceive 
that it is still soft—not so hard, perhaps, as wet blotting- 
paper—but so completely formed, that the touch will leave 
a hole, which we may trace forward till the paper is per¬ 
fectly made. The pulp does not flow over the sides of the 
plane, we observe, because a strap, on each side, constantly 
moving and passing upon its edges, regulates the width. 
After we pass the wheels upon which these straps terminate 
we perceive that the paper is sufficiently formed not to re¬ 
quire any further boundary to define its size; the pulp has 
ceased to be fluid. But it is yet tender and wet. The paper 
is not yet completely off the plane of wire: before it quits 
it, another roller, which is clothed with felt, and upon which 
a stream of cold water is constantly flowing, subjects it to 
pressure. The paper has at length left what may be called 
the region of wire, and has entered that of cloth. A 
tight surface of flannel, or felt, is moving onward with the 
same regular march as the web of wire. Like the wire, the 
felt is what is called endless—that is, united at the extremi¬ 
ties, as a jack-towel is. We see the sheet traveling up an 
inclined plane of this stretched flannel, which gradually ab¬ 
sorbs its moisture. It is now seized between two rollers, 
which powerfully squeeze it. It goes traveling up another 
inclined plane of flannel, and then passes through a second 
pair of pressing-rollers. It has now left the region of cloth, 
and has entered that of heat. The paper, up to this point, 
is quite formed ; but it is fragile and damp. It is in the 

18 * 


418 


BOOKBINDING. 


state in which, if the machinery were to stop here, as it did 
upon its first invention, it would require (having been 
wound upon a reel) to be parted and dried as hand-made 
paper is. But in a few seconds more it is subjected to a 
process by which all this labor and time is saved. From 
the last pair of cloth-pressing rollers, the paper is received 
upon a small roller which is guided over the polished sur¬ 
face of a large heated cylinder. The soft pulp tissue now 
begins to smoke; but the heat is proportioned to its in¬ 
creasing power of resistance. From the first cylinder, or 
drum, it is received upon a second, considerably larger, and 
much hotter. As it rolls over this polished surface, we see 
all the roughness of its appearance, when in the cloth re¬ 
region, gradually vanishing. At length, having passed over 
a third cylinder, still hotter than the second, and having 
been subjected to the pressure of a blanket, which confines 
it to one side, while the cylinder smooths it on the other, it 
is caught upon the last roller, which hands it over to the 
reel. The last process of the machine is to cut the contin¬ 
uous length of paper into sheets. 

In consequence of the cheaper production of the press, 
and the consequent extension of the demand for books, 
bookbinding has become a large manufacture, carried on 
with many scientific applications. We have rolling-ma¬ 
chines, to make the book solid ; cutting-machines, to super¬ 
sede the hand-labor of the little instrument called a plow; 
embossing machines, to produce elaborate raised patterns 
on leather or cloth: embossing presses, to give the gilt or¬ 
nament and lettering. These contrivances, and other simi¬ 
lar inventions, have not only cheapened books, but have 
enabled the publisher to give them a permanent instead of 
a temporary cover, ornamental as well as useful. The num¬ 
ber of persons employed has been quadrupled by these in¬ 
ventions. In 1830, the journeymen bookbinders of London 


TAX UPON PAPER. 


419 


opposed the introduction of the rolling-machine. Books 
were formerly beat with large hammers upon a stone, to 
give them solidity. The workmen were relieved from the 
drudgery of the beating-hammer by the easy operation of 
the rolling-machine. They soon discovered the weak found¬ 
ation of their objection to an instrument which, in truth, 
had a tendency, above all other things, to elevate their 
trade, and to make that an art which in one division of it 
was a mere labor. If the painter were compelled to grind 
his own colors and make his own frames, he would no longer 
follow an art, but a trade; and he would receive the wages 
of a laborer instead of the wages of an artist, not only so 
far as related to the grinding and frame-making, but as 
effecting all his occupations, by the drudgery attending a 
portion of them. 

The commerce of literature has been doubled in twenty 
years. But it would be scarcely too much to assert that 
the influence of the press, in forming public opinion, and 
causing it to operate upon legislation, has doubled almost 
every other employment. The difficulty of procuring the 
material of paper has become a serious impediment to the 
cheap diffusion of knowledge; and in Great Britain the 
paper-tax works in the same evil direction. There have 
been innumerable obstacles to the extension of knowledge 
since the days when books were written on the papyrus— 
obstacles equally raised up by despotic blindness and popu¬ 
lar ignorance. But it is not fitting that either of such 
causes should still be in action in the days of the printing- 
machine. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


POWER OF SKILL.—CHEAP PRODUCTION.—POPULATION AND PRODUCTION.—PARTIAL 
AND TEMPORARY EVILS.—INTELLIGENT LABOR.—DIVISION OF LABOR.—GENERAL 
KNOWLEDGE.—THE LOWELL OFFERING.—UNION OF FORCES. 


We have thus, without pretending to any approach to 
completeness, taken a rapid ‘view of many of the great 
branches of industry. We have exhibited capital working 
with accumulation of knowledge; we have shown labor 
working with skill. We desire to show that the counter¬ 
control to the absorbing power of capital is the rapidly 
developing power of skill—for that, also, is capital. Knowl¬ 
edge is power, because knowledge is property. Mr. Whit¬ 
worth, whose Report on American Manufactures we have 
several times quoted, says that the workmen of the United 
States, being educated, perform their duty “ with less super¬ 
vision than is required when dependence is to be placed 
upon uneducated hands.” He adds, “It rarely happens 
that a workman, who possesses superior skill in his craft, is 
disqualified to take the responsible position of superintend¬ 
ent, by the want of education and general knowledge, as is 
frequently the case in Great Britain .” One of the most 
essential steps toward the attainment of an elevated position 
on the part of the laborer, is the conviction that manual 
labor, to be effective, must adapt itself almost wholly to the 
direction of science; and that under that direction unskilled 
labor necessarily becomes skilled, and limited trust enlarges 
into influential responsibility. 


CHEAPNESS CREATES DEMAND. 


421 


Those who have taken a superficial view of the question 
of scientific application say, that only whenever there is a 
greater demand than the existing means can supply, is any 
new discovery hi mechanics a benefit to society, because it 
gives the means of satisfying the existing want; but that, 
on the contrary, whenever the things produced are sufficient 
for the consumers, the discovery is a calamity, because it 
does not add to the enjoyments of the consumers ; it only 
gives them a better market, which better market is bought 
at the price of the employment of the producers. 

All such reasoning is false in principle, and unsupported 
by experience. There is no such thing, nor, if machines 
went on improving for five hundred years at the rate they 
have done for the last century, could there be any such 
thing as a limit to the wants of the consumers. The great 
mass of facts which we have brought together in this book 
must have shown that the cheaper an article of necessity 
becomes, the more of it is used ; that when the most press¬ 
ing wants are supplied, and supplied amply by cheapness, 
the consumer has money to lay out on new wants; that 
when these new wants are supplied cheaply, he goes on 
again and again to other new wants; that there are no 
limits, in fact to his w r ants as long as he has any capital to 
satisfy them. Bear in mind this—that the first great object 
of every invention and every improvement is to confer a 
benefit upon the consumers—to make the commodity cheap 
and plentiful. The working man stands in a double char¬ 
acter; he is both a producer and a consumer. But we 
will be bold to say that the question of cheapness of pro¬ 
duction is a much more important question to be decided 
in his favor as a consumer, than the. question of dearness 
of production to be decided in his favor as a producer. 
The truth is, every man tries to, get as much as he can for 
his ow n labor, and to pay as little as he can for the labor of 


422 CHEAP PRODUCTION A GENERAL GOOD. 

others. If a mechanic, succeeding in stopping the machine 
used in his own trade, by any strange deviation from the 
natural course of things, were to get higher wages for a 
time, he himself would be the most injured by the exten¬ 
sion of the principle. When he found his loaf cost him 
twenty-five cents instead of sixpence ; when he was obliged 
to go to the river with his bucket for his supply of water; 
when his fuel cost ten dollars instead of five dollars ; when 
he was told by the hosier that his stockings were advanced 
from a shilling a pair to five shillings; when, in fact, the 
price of every article that he uses should be doubled, 
trebled, and, in nine cases out of ten, put beyond the possi¬ 
bility of attainment—what, we ask, would be the use to 
him of his advance in wages ? Let us never forget that it 
is not for the employment of laborers, but for the benefit 
of consumers, that labor is employed at all. The steam- 
engines are not working in the coal-pits of Pennsylvania, 
and the ships sailing from Philadelphia to Boston, to give 
employment to colliers and to sailors, but to make coals 
cheap in Boston. If the people of Boston could have the 
coals without the steam-engines and the ships, it would be 
better for them, and better for the rest of the world. If 
they could get coals for nothing, they would have more 
produce to exchange for money to spend upon other things; 
and the comforts, therefore, of every one of us would be 
increased. 

This increase of comfort, some may say, is a question 
that more affects the rich than it affects the great mass. 
This, again, is a mistake. The whole tendency of the im¬ 
provements of the last four hundred years has not only been 
to lift the meanest, in regard to a great many comforts, far 
above the condition of the rich four hundred years ago, but 
absolutely to place them, in many things, upon a level with 
the rich of their own day. They are surrounded, as we 


INCREASED EMPLOYMENT. 


423 


have constantly shown throughout this book, with an in¬ 
finite number of comforts and conveniences which had no 
existence two or three centuries ago; and those comforts 
and conveniences are not used only by a few, but are 
within the reach of almost all men. Every day is adding 
something to our comforts. Our houses are better built— 
our clothes are cheaper—we have a number of domestic 
utensils, whose use even was unknown to our ancestors— 
we can travel cheaply from place to place, and not only 
travel at less expense, but travel ten times quicker than 
the richest man could travel two hundred years ago. The 
bulk of society is not only advancing steadily to the same 
level in point of many comforts with the rich, but is gain¬ 
ing that knowledge which was formerly their exclusive 
possession. Let all of us who are producers keep fast hold 
of that last and best power. 

We have endeavored to show throughout this book that 
the one great result of machinery, and of every improve¬ 
ment in art, is to lessen the cost of production; to increase 
the benefit to the consumer. But it is a most fortunate 
arrangement of the social state, as we have also shown, that 
cheap production gives increased employment. The same 
class of false reasoners who consider that the wants of 
society are limited, cry out, it is better to have a popula¬ 
tion of men than of steam-engines. That might be true if 
the steam-engines did put out the men; but inasmuch as 
they increase the productions by which men are maintained, 
they increase the men. What has increased the population 
of England nearly tenfold during the last five hundred 
years but the improvement of the arts of life, which has 
enabled more men to live within the land ? There is no 
truth so clear, that as the productions of industry multiply, 
the means of acquiring these productions multiply also. 
The productions which are created by one producer furnish 


424 


INCREASED POPULATION. 


the means of purchasing the productions created by another 
producer; and, in consequence of this double production, 
the necessities of both the one and the other are better sup¬ 
plied. The multiplication of produce multiplies the con¬ 
sumers of produce. There are, probably, upon the average, 
no more hats made in the year than there are heads to wear 
them ; but as there are twenty millions of heads of Ameri¬ 
can citizens in 1855, and there were only three millions of 
British colonial subjects in 1775, it is self-evident that the 
hat-makers have more than six times as much work as they * 
had eighty years ago. What has given the hat-makers six 
times as much work? The increase of the population. 
And what has increased the population ? The increase of 
produce—the increase of the means of maintaining that pop¬ 
ulation. The great multiplication of produce is accompanied 
proportionately, with a far greater diminution of price. 

There is a just and eloquent passage in the registrar- 
general’s report upon the British census of 1851, which we 
gladly copy: 

“ With all that we now see around us, it is difficult to 
place ourselves in the position of the people of 1751 ; and 
to understand either the simplicity of the means, or the 
greatness of the task which has since been achieved by the 
people of England and Scotland. It is evident, however, 
that if the whole that they have accomplished had been 
proposed as a project, or been held out as the policy of the 
greatest minister then living, its difficulty and grandeur 
would have overwhelmed him with confusion. If, in the 
height of power, he had thus addressed the people of 
Britain, would he not have been heard with justifiable in¬ 
credulity?—‘These islands are occupied by the men of 
many separate states that are now happily united. After 
the settlement on the land of tribes, fleets, and armies of 
Celts, of Saxons, of Danes, and of Normans—and after cen- 


PARTIAL AND TEMPORARY EVILS. 


425 


turies of patient culture, its fertile soil sustains seven millions 
of people in its whole length. We can not—for the mighty 
power is not given us—say, let there be on the European 
shores of the Atlantic ocean, three Great Britains. But the 
means exist for creating on this land, in less than a hundred 
years, two more nations, each in number equal to the exist¬ 
ing population, and of distributing them over its fields, in 
cottages, farms, and towns, by the banks of its rivers, and 
around its immemorial hills ; and they will thus be neither 
separated by longer roads nor wider seas, but be neighbors, 
fellow-workers, and fellow-countrymen on the old territory; 
wielding by machines the forces of nature, that shall serve 
them with the strength of thousands of horses, on roads, 
and seas—in mines, manufactories, and ships. Subsistence 
shall be as abundant as it is now, and luxuries, which are 
confined to the few, shall be enjoyed by multitudes. The 
wealth of the country—its stock and its produce—shall 
increase in a faster ratio than the people. All this shall 
be accomplished without any miraculous agency, by the 
progress of society—by the diffusion of knowledge and 
morals—by improvements—and improvements chiefly in the 
institution of marriage—“ that true source of human off¬ 
spring,” whence, 

u Founded in reason, loyal, just, and pure, 

Relations dear, and all the charities 

Of father, son, and brother, first were known.’ ” 

If the reader has rightly considered the various facts 
which we have presented, he will long before this have 
come to the conclusion, that it is for the general interests 
of society that every invention, which has a tendency to 
diminish the cost of production, shall have the most perfect 
freedom to go forward. He will also have perceived, that 
the exercise of this natural right, this proud distinction, of 


426 PARTIAL AND TEMPORARY EVILS. 

man, to carry on the work of improvement to the fullest 
extent of his capacity and knowledge, can never be wholly 
stopped, however it may be opposed. It may be suspended 
by the ignorance of a government; it may be clamored 
down by the prejudice of a people; but the living principle 
which is in it can never be destroyed. To deny that this 
blessing, as well as many other blessings which we enjoy, 
is not productive of any particular evil, would be uncandid 
and unwise. Every change produced by the substitution 
of a perfect machine instead of an imperfect one, of a cheap 
machine instead of a dear one, is an inconvenience to those 
who have been associated with the imperfect and the dear 
machines. It is a change that more or less affects the inter¬ 
ests of capitalists as well as of workmen. In a commercial 
country, in a highly civilized community, improvement is 
hourly producing some change which affects some interests. 
Every new pattern which is introduced in hardware de¬ 
ranges for a moment the interests of the proprietors of the 
old molds. Every new book, upon any specific subject upon 
which books have formerly been written, lessens the value 
of the copyright of those existing books. What then ? Is 
every improvement, which thus produces a slight partial 
injury, to be discountenanced, because of this inevitable 
condition which we find at every step in the march of so¬ 
ciety ? Or rather, ought we not to feel that every improve¬ 
ment brings healing upon its wings, even to those for whom 
it is a momentary evil; that if it displaces their labor or 
their capital for a season, it gives new springs 'to the gen¬ 
eral industry, and calls forth all labor and all capital to 
higher and more successful exertions ? At every advance 
which improvement makes, the partial and temporary evils 
of improvement are more and more lessened. In the early 
stages of social refinement, when a machine for greatly 
diminishing labor is for the first time introduced, its effects 


INTELLIGENT LABOR. 


427 


in displacing labor for an instant may be seen in the condi¬ 
tion of great masses of people. It is the first step which is 
the most trying. Thus, when printing superseded the copies 
of books by writing, a large body of people were put out 
of employ; they had to seek new employ. It was the 
same with the introduction of the spinning machinery; the 
same with the power-loom. It would be presumptuous to 
say that no such great changes could again happen in any 
of the principal branches of human industry; but it may be 
said, that the difficulty of superseding our present expedi¬ 
tious and cheap modes of manufacture is daily increasing. 
The more machines are multiplied, that is, the more society 
approaches toward perfection, the less room is there for 
those great inventions which change the face of the world. 
We shall still go on improving, doubtless; but ingenuity 
will have a much narrower range to work in. It may per¬ 
fect the machines which we have got, but it will invent 
fewer original machines. And who can doubt, that the 
nearer we approach to this state, the better wdll it be for 
the general condition of mankind? Who can doubt 
whether, instead of a state of society where the laborers 
were few and wretched, wasting human strength, unaided 
by art, in labors which could be better performed by wind, 
and water, and steam—by the screw and the lever—it would 
not be better to approach as nearly as we can to a state of 
society where the laborers would be many and lightly 
tasked, exerting human power in its noblest occupation, 
that of giving a direction by its intelligence to the mere 
physical power which it had conquered ? Surely, a nation 
so advanced as to apply the labor of its people to occupa¬ 
tions where a certain degree of intelligence was required, 
leaving all that was purely mechanical to machines and to 
inferior animals, would produce for itself the greatest num¬ 
ber of articles of necessity and convenience, of luxury and 


428 


DIVISION OF LABOR. 


taste, at the cheapest cost. But it would do more. It 
would have its population increasing with the increase of 
those productions; and that population employed in those 
labors alone which could not be carried on without that 
great power of man by which he subdues all other power 
to his use—his reason. 

But it is not only science which has determined, and is 
more and more determining, the condition of the great body 
of operatives, but the organization of industry upon the 
factory principle, so universal and so powerful, has ren¬ 
dered it impossible for the future that the larger amount of 
the labor of a country should be regarded as an insulated 
force. It must work in conjunction with higher and more 
powerful forces. 

In France, which, as a commercial and manufacturing 
country, is considerably behind the advance of England 
or the United States, it was a common practice, in many 
villages and small towns, not very long ago, for the weavers 
to make the looms and other implements of their trade. In 
the fifteenth century, in the same country, before an ap¬ 
prentice could be admitted to the privilege of a master- 
weaver, it was not only necessary for him to prove that he 
understood his trade as a weaver, but that he was able to 
construct all the’machines and tools with which he carried 
on his craft. Those who know any thing of the business of 
weaving will very readily come to the conclusion that the 
apprentice of the fifteenth century, whose skill was put to 
such a proof, was both an indifferent weaver and an indif¬ 
ferent mechanician; that in the attempt to unite two such 
opposite trades, he must have excelled in neither; and that 
in fact the regulation was one of those monstrous violations 
of the freedom of industry, which our ancestors chose to 
devise for the support of industry. 

Carrying the principle of a division of labor to the other 


DIVISION OF LABOR. 


429 


extreme point, we have seen that a vast number of persons 
are engaged in the manufacture of a piece of cloth,* who, 
if individually set to carry the workmanship of that piece 
of cloth through all its stages, would be utterly incompe¬ 
tent to produce it at all, much less to produce it as durable 
and beautiful as the cloth which we all daily consume. 
How would the sorter of the wool, for example, know how 
to perform the business of the scourer, or of the dyer, or of 
the carder ? or the carder that of the spinner or the weaver ? 
or the weaver that of the miller, or boiler, or dyer, or 
brasher, or cutter, or presser? We must be quite sure 
that, if any arbitrary power or regulation, such as compelled 
the weaver of the fifteenth century to make his own loom, 
were, on the other hand, to compel a man engaged in any 
one branch of the manufacture of woolen cloth to carry that 
manufacture through all its stages, the production of cloth 
would be utterly suspended; and that the workmen being 
incompetent to go on, the wages of the workmen could no 
longer be paid; for the wages of labor are paid by the con¬ 
sumer of the produce of labor, and here there would be 
nothing to consume. 

The great principle, therefore, which keeps the division 
of labor in full activity is, that the principle is necessary to 
production upon a scale that will maintain the number of 
laborers engaged in working in the cheapest, because 
most economical manner, through the application of that 
mode of working. The laborers, even if the principle were 
injurious to their individual prosperity and happiness, which 
we think it is not, could not dispense with the principle, 
because it is essential to economical production; and if 
dear production were to take the place of economical pro¬ 
duction, there would be a proportionately diminished de- 


* See Chapter XIX. 


430 


DIVISION OF LABOR. 


mand for products, and a proportionate diminution of the 
number of producers. 

The same laws of necessity which render it impossible 
for the working men to contend against the operation of the 
division of labor—even if it were desirable that they should 
contend against it, as far as their individual interests are 
concerned—render it equally impossible that they should 
contend against the operation of accumulation of knowl¬ 
edge in the direction of their labor. The mode in which 
accumulation of knowledge influences the direction of their 
labor is, that it furnishes mechanical and chemical aids to 
the capitalist for carrying on the business of production. 
The abandonment of those mechanical and chemical aids 
would suspend production, and not in the slightest degree 
increase, but greatly diminish, and ultimately destroy, the 
power of manual labor, seeking to work without those me¬ 
chanical and chemical aids. The abandonment of the divi¬ 
sion of labor would work the same effects. There would be 
incomparably less produced on all sides; and the workmen 
on all sides, experiencing in their fullest extent the evils 
which result from diminished production, would all fall 
back in their condition, and day by day have less com¬ 
mand of the necessaries and comforts of life, till they sank 
into utter destitution. 

We dwell principally on the effects of accumulation of 
knowledge and division of labor on the working man as a 
consumer, because it is the more immediate object of this 
volume to consider such questions with reference to produc¬ 
tion. But the condition of the working man as a producer 
is, taking the average of all ranks of producers, greatly ad¬ 
vanced by the direction which capital gives to labor, by 
calling in accumulation of knowledge and division of labor. 
If the freedom of labor were not established upon the 
same imperishable basis as the security of property, we 


DIVISION OF LABOR. 


431 


might, indeed, think that it was a pitiable thing for a man 
to labor through life at one occupation, and believe that 
it was debasing to the human intellect and morals to make 
forever the eye of a needle, or raise a nap upon woolen 
cloth. The Hindoos, when they instituted their castes , 
which compelled a man to follow, without a possibility of 
emerging ‘from it, the trade of his fathers, saw the general 
advantage of the division of labor; but they destroyed the 
principle which could make it endurable to the individual. 
They destroyed the freedom of industry. “ To limit in¬ 
dustry or genius, and narrow the field of individual exertion 
by any artificial means, is an injury to human nature of the 
same kind as that brought on by a community of posses¬ 
sions. Where there is no stimulus to industry, things 
are worst; where industry is circumscribed, they can not 
prosper ; and are then only in a healthy state, when every 
avenue to personal advantage is open to every talent and 
disposition. A state of equality is an instance of the first 
case; the division of the people into castes, as among the 
Ancient Egyptians, and still among the Hindoos, of the 
second. This division has been considered by all intel¬ 
ligent travelers as one powerful cause of the stationary 
character of the inhabitants of that country: and the effect 
would have been still more pernicious, if time or necessity 
had not introduced some relaxation into the rigorous re¬ 
strictions originally established, and so ancient as to be 
attributed to Siva. As long, however, as the rule is gene¬ 
rally adhered to, that a man of a lower class is restricted 
from the business of a higher class, so long, we may safely 
predict, India will continue what it is in point of civilization. 
An approach to the same effect may be witnessed in the 
limitation of honors, privileges, and immunities in some 
countries of Europe.” 

In those manufactures and trades where the division ot 


432 


DIVISION OF LABOR. 


labor is carried to the greatest extent, such as the manufac¬ 
ture of cotton and wool, workmen readily change from one 
branch to the other, without molestation, and without any 
great difficulty of adapting themselves to a new occupation. 
The simpler the process in which a workman has been en¬ 
gaged—and every process is rendered more simple by the 
division of labor—the easier the transition: and the prin¬ 
cipal quality which is required to make the transition is, 
that stock of general knowledge which the division of labor 
enables a man to attain; and which, in point of fact, is 
attained in much higher perfection in a large manufactory, 
than in that rude state where one man is more or less com¬ 
pelled to do everything for his body, and therefore has no 
leisure to do any thing for his mind. There are evils, 
undoubtedly, in carrying the division of labor to an ex¬ 
treme point; but we think that those very evils correct 
themselves, because they destroy the great object of the 
principle, and give imperfect instead of perfect production. 
The moral evils which some have dreaded may assuredly 
be corrected by general education, and in fact are cor¬ 
rected by the union of numbers in one employment. What 
sharpens the intellect ought, undoubtedly, to elevate the 
morals; and, indeed, it is only false knowledge which de¬ 
bases the morals. Knowledge and virtue, we believe, are 
the closest allies; and wisdom is the fruit of knowledge 
and virtue. 

The same principles as to the course which the division 
of labor should lead the laborer to pursue, apply to the 
higher occupations of industry. No man of learning has 
ever very greatly added to the stock of human knowledge, 
without devoting himself, if not exclusively, with some¬ 
thing like an especial dedication of his time and talents, to 
one branch of science or literature. In the study of nature 
we have the mathematician, the astronomer, the chemist, 


GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 


433 


the botanist, the zoologist, and the physician, engaged each 
in his different department. In the exposition of moral 
and political truths, we have the metaphysician, the theo¬ 
logian, the statesman, the lawyer, occupied each in his 
peculiar study or profession. A mental laborer, to excel 
in any one of these branches, must know something of 
every other branch. He must direct indeed the power of 
his mind to one department of human knowledge; but he 
can not conquer that department without a general, and, 
in many respects, accurate knowledge of every other de¬ 
partment. The same principle produces the same effects, 
whether applied to the solution of the highest problem in 
geometry, or the polishing of a pin. The division of labor 
must be regulated by the acquisition of general knowledge. 

There was probably no more striking example ever given 
of the union of factory labor with a taste for knowledge 
and an ardor for mental improvement, that was presented 
by the female operatives working in the cotton-manufac¬ 
tories of Lowell, in Massachusetts. They wrote and pub¬ 
lished for their own amusement, a magazine, called “The 
Lowell Offering,” in which the writers exhibited remark¬ 
able attainments, and no common facility of composition. 
An English writer in commenting upon the publication of 
this magazine, used the following language: 

“ In dwelling upon the thoughts of others, in fixing their 
own thoughts upon some definite object, these factory girls 
have lifted themselves up into a higher region than is at¬ 
tained by those, whatever be their rank, whose minds are 
not filled with images of what is natural and beautiful and 
true. They have raised themselves out of the sphere of 
the partial and the temporary, into the broad expanse of the 
universal and the eternal. During their twelve hours of 
daily labor, when there were easy but automatic services to 
perform, waiting upon a machine—with that slight degree 

19 


434 


THE LOWELL OFFERING. 


of skill which no machine can ever attain—for the repair 
of the accidents of its unvarying progress, they may, with¬ 
out a neglect of their duty, have been elevating their minds 
in the scale of being by cheerful lookings-out upon nature; 
by pleasant recollections of books; by imaginary converse 
with the just and wise who have lived before them; by con¬ 
soling reflections upon the infinite goodness and wisdom 
which regulates this world, so unintelligible without such a 
dependence. These habits have given them cheerfulness 
and freedom amid their uninterrupted toils. We see no 
repinings against their twelve hours’ labor, for it has had 
its solace. Even during the low wages of 1842, which they 
mention with sorrow but without complaint, the same cul¬ 
tivation goes on. To the immense body of operatives else¬ 
where the example of what the girls of Lowell have done 
should be especially valuable. It should teach them that 
their strength, as well as.their happiness, lies in the culti¬ 
vation of their minds. To the employers of operatives, 
and to all of wealth and influence among us, this example 
ought to manifest that a strict and diligent performance of 
daily duties, in work prolonged even more than in our own 
factories, is no impediment to the exercise of those faculties, 
and the gratification of those tastes, which, whatever was 
once thought, can no longer be held to be limited by sta¬ 
tion. There is a contest going on among us, as it is going 
on all over the world, between the hard imperious laws 
which regulate the production of wealth, and the aspira¬ 
tions of benevolence for the increase of human happiness. 
We do not deplore the contest; for out of it must come 
a gradual subjection of the iron necessity to the holy in¬ 
fluences of love and charity. Such a period can not, in¬ 
deed, be rashly anticipated by legislation against principles 
which are secondary laws of nature; but one thing never¬ 
theless is certain—that such an improvement of the opera- 


UNION OF FORCES. 


435 


tive classes, as all good men—and we sincerely believe 
among them the great body of manufacturing capitalists— 
ardently pray for, and desire to labor in their several 
spheres to attain, will be brought about in a parallel pro¬ 
gression with the elevation of the operatives themselves in 
mental cultivation, and consequently in moral excellence.” * 
The division of labor in carrying forward the work of 
production is invariably commanded, because it is perfected, 
by the union of forces, or co-operation. The process of 
manufacturing a piece of woolen cloth is carried on by di¬ 
vision of labor, and by union of forces, working together. 
In fact, if there were not that ultimate co-operation, the 
division of labor would be not only less productive than 
labor without division, but it would not be productive at 
all. The power of large capital is the power which, as 
society is arranged, compels this division of parts for the 
more complete production of a whole. A large cloth man¬ 
ufactory, as we have seen, exhibits itself to the eye chiefly 
in the division of labor; but all that division ends in a co¬ 
operation for the production of a piece of cloth. A ship, 
with five hundred men on board, each engaged in various 
duties, and holding different ranks, is an example of the 
division of labor, but the division ends in a co-operation to 
carry the ship from one port to another, and, if it be a ship 
of war, to defend it from the attacks of an enemy. Those 
who would direct the principle of co-operation into a dif¬ 
ferent channel, by remodeling society into large partner¬ 
ships, do not, because they can not depart, in the least de¬ 
gree, from the principles we have laid down. They must 
have production, and therefore they must have division of 
labor; the division of labor involves degrees of skill; the 
whole requires to be carried on with accumulation of former 

* “Mind among the Spindles;” in the series called “ Knight’s Weekly 
Volume.” 


436 


UNION - OF FORCES. 


labor or capital, or it could not exist. The only difference 
proposed is, that the laborers shall be the capitalists, and 
that each shall derive a share in the production, partly from 
what now is represented as his profits as a capitalist, and 
partly from what is represented as his wages as a laborer ; 
but that all separate property shall be swallowed up in joint 
property. But we mention this subject here to show that 
even those who aspire to remodel society can not change 
the elements with which it is now constructed, and must 
work with the same principles, however different may be 
the names of those principles, and however varied in their 
application. This is in favor even of the ultimate success ol 
the principles of co-operation, if they should be found prac¬ 
tically to work for the increase of the happiness of mankind; 
which would not be effected by equalizing the distribution 
of wealth, if, at the same time, its production were mate¬ 
rially checked. This view of the subject goes to show that 
no sudden or violent change is necessary. In many things 
society has always acted on the principles of co-operation. 
As civilization extends, the number of instances has hither¬ 
to increased; and if there is no natural maximum to the 
adoption of these principles (which remains to be seen), 
men may gradually slide more and more into them, and 
realize all sane expectations, without any reconstruction of 
their social system—any pulling down and building up 
again of their morals or their houses. 

It is this union of forces which, whether it prevail in a 
single manufactory, in a manufacturing town viewed in con¬ 
nection with that manufactory, in an agricultural district 
viewed in connection with a manufacturing town, in a capi¬ 
tal viewed in connection with both, in a State viewed in 
connection with all its parts, and in the whole world viewed 
in connection with particular States; it is this union of 
forces which connects the humblest with the highest in the 


UNION OF FORCES. 


437 


production of utility. The poor lad who tends sheep, and 
the capitalist who spends thousands of pounds for carrying 
forward a process to make the wool of these sheep into 
cloth, though at different extremities of the scale, are each 
united for the production of utility. The differences of 
power and enjoyment (and the differences of enjoyment are 
much less than appear upon the surface) between the shep¬ 
herd-boy and the great cloth-manufacturer, are apparently 
necessary for the end of enabling both the shepherd-boy 
and the capitalist to be fed, and clothed, and lodged, by ex¬ 
changes with other producers. They are also necessary for 
keeping alive that universal, and, therefore, as it would ap¬ 
pear, natural desire for the improvement of our condition, 
which, independently of the necessity for the satisfaction of 
immediate wants, more or less influences the industry of 
every civilized being as to the hopes of the future. It is 
this union which constitutes the real dignity of all useful 
employments, and may make the poorest laborer feel that 
he is advancing the welfare of mankind as well as the 
richest capitalist; and that, standing upon the solid founda¬ 
tion of free exchange, the rights of the one are as parar 
mount as the rights of the other, and that the rights of each 
have no control but the duties of each. We believe that 
the interests of each are also inseparably united, and that 
the causes which advance or retard the prosperity of each 
are one and the same. 


CHAPTER XXV. 


ACCUMULATION.—PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE CONSUMPTION.—USE OF CAPITAL. 

—CREDIT.—SECURITY OF PROPERTY.—PRODUCTION APPLIED TO THE SATISFACTION 

OF COMMON WANTS.—INCREASE OF COMFORTS.—RELATIONS OF CAPITALIST AND 

LABORER. 

Dr. William Bulleyn, who lived three centuries ago, 
first gave currency to the saying, that great riches were 
“ like muckhills, a burden to the land and offensive to the 
inhabitants thereof, till their heaps are cast abroad, to the 
profit of many.” The worthy physician belonged to an age 
when the class called misers extensively prevailed; and 
when those who lent out money upon interest were denomi¬ 
nated usurers. They were generally objects of public oblo¬ 
quy, and their function was not understood. There are 
plenty of men still among us who, in Dr. Bulleyn’s view of 
the matter, are impersonations of the muck that is not 
spread. The muck-spreaders, according to the old notion, 
were those whose consumption were always endeavoring to 
outstrip the production that was going forward around 
them. The latter is by far the larger class at the present 
day ; the former, the more powerful. 

Let us endeavor, somewhat more with reference to prac¬ 
tical results than we have already attempted, to look at 
some of the general principles existing in modern society 
which determine the existence and regulate the employment 
of capital. 

Whatever is saved and accumulated is a saving and accu¬ 
mulation of commodities which have been produced. The 


ACCUMULATION. 


439 


value of the accumulation is most conveniently expressed 
by an equivalent in money; but only a very small part of 
the accumulation is actually money. A few millions of 
bullion are sufficient to carry on the transactions of this 
country. Its accumulations, or capital, which have been 
considered to amount to twenty-two hundred million pounds 
sterling, could not be purchased by several times the 
amount of all the bullion that exists in the world. A great 
part of what is saved, therefore, is an accumulation of pro¬ 
ducts suitable for consumption. The moment that they are 
applied to the encouragement of production, they begin to 
be consumed. They encourage production only so far as 
they enable the producers to consume while they are in the 
act of producing. Accumulation, therefore, is no hinderance 
to consumption. It encourages consumption as much as 
expenditure of revenue unaccompanied by accumulation. It 
enables the things consumed to be replaced, instead of being 
utterly destroyed. 

Whatever is consumed by those who are carrying for¬ 
ward the business of production has been called productive 
consumption. Whatever, on the other hand, is consumed 
' by those who are not engaged in re-producing, has been 
called unproductive consumption. The difference may be 
thus illustrated: A shoemaker, we will say, rents a shop, 
works up leather and other materials, uses various tools, 
burns out candles, and is himself fed and clothed while in 
the act of producing a pair of shoes. This is productive con¬ 
sumption ; for the pair of shoes represents the value of the 
materials employed in them, the commodities consumed by 
the shoemaker during their production, and the wear and 
tear of the tools applied in making them. If the shoes re¬ 
present a higher value than what has been consumed, in 
consequence of the productiveness of the labor of the shoe¬ 
maker, the difference is net produce, which may be saved, 


440 


CONSUMPTION. 


and, with other savings, become capital. But further : the 
shoemaker, we will suppose, accumulates profits sufficient 
to enable him to live without making shoes, or applying 
himself to any other branch of industry. He now uses no 
materials, he employs no tools, but he consumes for the sup¬ 
port and enjoyment of existence, without adding any thing 
to the gross produce of society; this is called unproductive 
consumption. 

The differences, however, between productive and unpro¬ 
ductive consumption admit of considerable qualification. 
We have already described the course of a spendthrift, and 
of a man of fortune who lives virtuously and economically. 
Whatever may be the scientific definition, no one can say 
that these, even viewed from the industrial point, can be 
classed together as unproductive consumers. Productive 
consumption, according to the strict definition of the earlier 
economists, is consumption directly applied to the creation 
of some material product. But a new element was intro¬ 
duced into the question by Mr. Mill’s definition—that 
labor and expenditure are also productive, “which, with¬ 
out having for their direct object the creation of any useful 
natural product, or bodily or mental faculty or quality, yet 
lead indirectly to promote on 3 or other of those ends.” On 
the other hand, unproductive consumption consists of labor 
and expenditure exerted or incurred u uselessly, or in pure 
waste, and yielding neither direct enjoyment nor permanent 
sources of enjoyment.” 

It has been suggested by Dr. Cooper, that the parable of 
“ the ten talents,” in St. Matthew’s Gospel, points to the 
employment of capital for future production “For the 
kingdom of heaven is as a man traveling into a far country, 
who called his own servants, and delivered to them his 
goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, 
and to another one; to every man according to his several 


CONSUMPTION. 


441 


ability; and straightway took his journey. Then he that 
had received the five talents went and traded with the same, 
and made them other five talents. And likewise he that 
had received two, he also gained other two. But he that 
had received one, went and digged in the earth, and hid his 
lord’s money.” The last was the “ wicked and slothful,” 
because unprofitable servant. His was the sin of omission. 
He ought to have put out the money to “ the exchangers,” 
even if he had been afraid to trade with it. 

Adam Smith has laid it down as an axiom that the pro¬ 
prietor who encroaches upon his capital by extravagance 
and waste is a positive destroyer of the funds destined for 
the employment of productive labor. No doubt this is, in 
many respects, true. He, also, has buried his “ one talent.” 
But the common opinion of what are called “ the money¬ 
making classes” of our time goes somewhat further than 
this. It is frequently said that “ the life of a man who 
leaves no property or family provision, of his own acquiring 
at his death, is felt to have been a failure.”* There are 
many modes in which the life of an industrious, provident, 
and able man may have been far other than “a failure,” even 
in a commercial point of view, when he leaves his family 
with no greater money inheritance than that with which he 
began the world himself. He may have preserved his 
family, during the years in which he has lived among them, 
in the highest point of efficiency for future production. He 
may have consumed to the full extent of his income, pro¬ 
ducing, but accumulating no money capital for reproductive 
consumption ; and indirectly, but not less certainly, he may 
have accumulated while he has consumed, so as to enable 
others to consume profitably. If he have had sons, whom 
he has trained to manhood, bestowing upon them a liberal 

* An Essay on the “ Relations between Labor and Capital.” By C. 
Morison, p. 34. 


1 9* 


442 


CONSUMPTION. 


education; bringing them up, by honest example, in all 
trustworthiness; and causing them to be diligently in¬ 
structed in some calling which requires skill and experience 
—he is an accumulator. If he have had daughters, whom 
he has brought up in habits of order and frugality, apt for 
all domestic employments, instructed themselves, and capa¬ 
ble of carrying forward the duties of instruction—he has 
reared those who, in the honorable capacity of wife, mother, 
and mistress of a family, influence the industrial powers of 
the more direct laborers in no small degree; and, being the 
great promoters of all social dignity and happiness, create a 
noble and virtuous nation. By the capital thus spent in 
enabling his children to be valuable members of society, he 
has accumulated a fimd out of his consumption which may 
be productive at a future day. He has postponed his 
money contribution to the general stock; but he has not 
withheld it altogether. He has not been “ the wicked and 
slothful servant.” On the other hand, many a man, whose 
life, according to the mere capitalist doctrine, has not been 
“ a failure,” and who has taught his family to attach only a 
money-value to every object of creation, bequeaths to the 
world successors whose rapacity, ignorance, unskillfulness, 
and improvidence, will be so many charges upon the capital 
of the nation. The “ muckhill” will by them be “ cast 
abroad,” but it will be devoted to the mere pursuit of sen¬ 
sual indulgence, losing half its fertilizing power, and too 
often burning up the soil that its judicious application 
would stimulate. He that has been weak enough, accord¬ 
ing to this “ middle-class” doctrine, not to believe that the 
whole business of man is to make a “ muckhill,” may have 
spent his existence in labors, public or private, for the bene¬ 
fit of his fellow-creatures ; but his life is “ a failure!” The 
greater part of the clergy, of the bar, of the medical profes¬ 
sion, of the men of science and literature, of the defenders 


CONSUMPTION. 


443 


of their country, devote their minds to high duties, and 
some to heroic exertions, without being inordinately anx¬ 
ious to guard themselves against such “ a failure.” It would, 
perhaps, be well if some of those who believe that all virtue 
is to be resolved into dollars and cents, were to consider 
that society demands from “ the money-making classes” a 
more than ordinary contribution—not to indiscriminate be¬ 
nevolence, but to those public instruments of production— 
educational institutions—improved sanitary arrangements— 
which are best calculated to diminish the interval between 
the very rich and the very poor. 

Whatever tends to enlighten the great body of the peo¬ 
ple facilitates individual accumulation. A large portion of 
the productions of industry, especially among the humbler 
classes of the community, is wasted, in addition to that 
portion which is enjoyed. Every consumption that is saved 
by habits of order, by knowing the best way of setting 
about a thing, by economy in the use of materials, is so 
much saved of the national capital; and what is saved re¬ 
mains to give new encouragement to the labor of the pro¬ 
ducer, and to bestow an increase of comforts upon the 
consumer. Again, the more that professional skill of every 
sort is based upon real knowledge, the more productive 
will be the industry of every class of laborers. Above all, 
sound morals, and pure and simple tastes, are the best pre¬ 
servatives from wasteful expenditure, both in the rich and 
in the poor; and he that limits his individual gratification 
to objects worthy of a rational being, has the best chance 
of acquiring a sufficiency for his wants, and of laying by 
something to provide a fund for that productive consump¬ 
tion by which the wants of others are supplied. 

With these general remarks upon accumulation and con¬ 
sumption, let us proceed to consider some points connected 
with the application of capital. 


444 


USE OF CAPITAL. 


The use of capital consists in its advance. It goes before 
all operations of labor and trade. It is the power that sets 
labor and trade in motion; just as the power of wind, or 
water, or steam, gives movement to wheels and pistons. 

Let us briefly see how capital operates upon the three 
great branches of human industry, namely, upon agricul¬ 
ture, manufactures, and commerce. 

A farmer having acquired capital, either by the former 
savings of himself or his fathers, or by borrowing from the 
savings of others, takes a certain number of acres of land. 
He changes his capital of money into other things which 
are equally capital; into horses, and cows, and sheep, and 
agricultural instruments, and seed. He makes an advance 
in the hope of producing a profit. He therefore sets his 
horses to work; he gets milk from his cows; he shears his 
sheep; he fattens his oxen; and he put his tools into the 
hands of laborers, to prepare the ground for the reception 
of his seed. He is paying money away on every side, which 
he would not do if he did not expect a return, with a profit. 
By all these operations—by the work of his horses and his 
laborers—by the increase in number, and the increase in 
value of his flocks and herds—and by the harvest after the 
seed-time—new produce is created which produces a return 
of capital, and ought to produce a profit if that capital is 
jiroperly expended. The hope of profit sets the capital to 
work, and the capital sets the labor to work. If there were 
no capital there would be no labor. Capital gives the la¬ 
borer the power, which he has not in himself, of working 
for a profit. 

A capitalist desires to set up a cotton manufactory. He 
erects buildings, he purchases machines, he buys cotton, he 
engages workmen. The annual value of the buildings and 
of the machines—that is, the interest upon their cost, added 
to their loss by wear and tear—the price of the raw mate- 


CREDIT. 


445 


rial, and the wages of the workmen, are all calculated to be 
paid out of the price at which the cotton-cloth will be sold. 
To engage in such large undertakings, in which the returns 
are slow, there must be great accumulation of capital. To 
engage in such large undertakings, in which the risk is con¬ 
siderable, there must be abundant enterprise. Without 
extensive accumulations of capital, which produce enter¬ 
prise, they could not be engaged in at all. 

Capital employed in commerce circulates through the 
world in a thousand forms; but it all comes back in pro¬ 
duce to the country that sends it out. Nations that have 
no accumulated stock—that is, no capital—have no com¬ 
merce ; and where there is no commerce there are no ships 
and no sailors; and there are no comforts besides those 
which spring up at the feet of the more fortunate individ¬ 
uals of such nations. 

In all these operations of capital upon the enterprises of 
agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, another power, 
which is the result of accumulation, is more or less, in most 
cases, called into action. That power is credit. 

Credit, upon a large scale, arose from the difficulty of 
transmitting coined money from place to place, and par¬ 
ticularly from one country to another; and hence the 
invention of bills of exchange. A bill of exchange is an 
order by one person on another, to pay to a specified per¬ 
son, or his order, a sum of money specified, at a certain 
time and a certain place. It is evident that the bill of ex¬ 
change travels as much more conveniently than a bag of 
money, as the bag of money travels more conveniently than 
the goods which it represents. For instance, a box of hard¬ 
ware from Philadelphia might be exchanged for a case of 
wine from Bordeaux, by a direct barter between the mer¬ 
chant at Philadelphia and the tradesman at Bordeaux; but 
this sort of operation must be a very limited one. Through 


446 


CREDIT. 


the agency of merchants, the hardware finds its way to 
Bordeaux, and the wine to Philadelphia without any direct 
exchange between either place, or without either having 
more of the commodity wanted than is required by the 
market—that is, the supply proportioned to the demand of 
each town. Through the division of labor, the merchant 
who exports the hardware to Bordeaux, and the merchant 
who imports the wine from Bordeaux, are different people; 
and there are other people engaged in carrying on other 
transactions at and with Bordeaux, with whom these mer¬ 
chants come in contact. When, therefore, the merchant at 
Bordeaux has to pay for the hardware in the United States, 
he obtains a bill of exchange from some other merchant 
who has to receive money from the United States, for the 
wine which he has sent there. And thus not only is there 
no direct barter between the grower of the wine and the 
manufacturer of the hardware, but the vine and the hard¬ 
ware are each paid for without any direct remittance of 
coined money from France to America, but by a transfer 
of the debt due from one person to another in each country. 
By this transfer, the transaction between the buyer and the 
seller is at once'brought to maturity; and by this operation 
the buyer and seller are each benefited, because the ex¬ 
change which each desires is rendered incomparably more 
easy, because more speedy and complete. The same prin¬ 
ciple applies to transactions between commercial men in the 
same country. The order for payment, which stands in the 
place of coined money in one case, is called a foreign bill of 
exchange; in the other an inland bill of exchange. 

The operation of credit in a country whose industry is in 
an advanced state of activity, is extended over all its com¬ 
mercial transactions, by the necessity of obtaining circulat¬ 
ing capital for the carrying forward the production of any 
commodity, from its first to its last stages. A manufac- 


CREDIT. 


447 


turer has a large sum expended in workshops, warehouses, 
machinery, tools. This is called his fixed capital. He has 
capital invested also in the raw material which he intends 
to convert into some article of utility. He works up his 
raw material; he makes advances for the labor required in 
working it up. The article is at length ready for the 
market. The wholesale dealer, who purchases of the man¬ 
ufacturer, sells to a retailer, who is in the habit of buying 
upon credit, long or short, because the article remains a 
certain time in his hands before it reaches the consumer, 
who ultimately pays for it. From the time when a fleece 
of wool is taken from the sheep’s back in Australia, till it is 
purchased in the shape of a coat in London, there are ex¬ 
tensive outlays in every department, which could not be 
carried on steadily unless there were facilities of credit from 
one person concerned in the production to another person 
concerned in the production—the whole credit being 
grounded upon the belief that the debt contracted in so 
many stages will be repaid by the sale of the cloth to the 
consumer. The larger operations of this credit are repre¬ 
sented by bills of exchange, or engagements to pay at a 
given date; and these bills being converted into cash by a 
banker, furnish a constant supply of consumable commodi¬ 
ties to all parties concerned in advancing the production, 
till the produce arrives in the hands of the consumer. To 
judge of the extent to which credit is carried in England, 
it is only necessary to mention, that £ 5 , 000,000 sterling 
are daily paid in bills and checks by the London bankers 
alone; that the Bank of England alone, in 1853 , discounted 
bills to the amount of £ 25 , 000,000 sterling; and that the 
note circulation of Great Britain is about £ 40 , 000 , 000 . 
Credit, undoubtedly, if conducted upon fair principles, rep¬ 
resents some capital actually in existence, and therefore 
does not really add to the accumulation or capital of the 


448 


CREDIT. 


producers. But it enables men in trade at once to have 
stock and circulating capital—to use even their houses, and 
shops, and manufactories, and implements; and to give, at 
the same time, a security to others upon that fixed capital. 
This process is, as it were, as if they coined that fixed capi¬ 
tal. The credit, which is rendered as secure as possible in 
all its stages by the accumulating securities of the drawer, 
acceptor, and endorsers of a bill of exchange, brings capital 
into activity—it carries it directly to those channels in 
which it may be profitably employed—it conducts it to 
those channels by a systematic mode of payment for its 
use, which we call interest, or discount; and it therefore 
carries forward accumulation to its highest point of produc¬ 
tiveness. 

If the reader will turn to the passage in the chapter, 
where Tanner describes the refusal of the traders to give 
him credit, he will see how capital, advanced upon credit, 
sets industry in motion. The Indians had accumulated no 
store of skins to exchange for the trader’s store of guns, 
ammunition, traps, and blankets. The trader, although he 
possessed the articles which the Indians wanted, refused to 
advance them upon the usual credit; and they were conse¬ 
quently as useless to the Indians as if they had remained in 
a warehouse across the Atlantic. When the credit was 
taken away from the Indians, they could no longer be ex¬ 
changers. Their own necessities for clothing were too 
urgent to enable them to turn their attention from that 
supply to accumulate capital for exchange, after the winter 
had passed away. They hunted only for themselves. The 
trader went without his skins, and the Indians without their 
blankets. Doubtless, the keenness of commercial activity 
soon saw that this state of things was injurious even to the 
more powerful party, for the accustomed credit was pres¬ 
ently restored to the Indians. It was the only means by 


CREDIT. 


449 


which that balance of power could be quickly restored 
which would enable the parties again to become exchang¬ 
ers. Every exchange presupposes a certain equality in the 
exchangers; and credit, therefore, from the capitalist to the 
non-capitalist, must, in many cases, be the first step toward 
any transaction of mutual profit. If the Indians had adopt¬ 
ed the resolution of Tanner, to do without the blankets for 
the winter, and had substituted the more imperfect clothing 
of skins—and if the traders had persevered in their system 
refusing credit, that is, of advancing capital—the exchange 
of furs must have been suspended, until, by incessant indus¬ 
try, and repeated self-denial, the Indians had become capi¬ 
talists themselves. They probably, after a long series of 
laborious accumulations, might have done without the 
credit—that is, have not consumed the goods which they 
received before they were in a condition to give their own 
goods as equivalents; and then, as it usually happens in the 
exchanges of civilized society, they would have insured a 
higher reward for their labor. The credit rendered the 
labor of the Indians less severe, inasmuch as it allowed 
them to work with the aid of the accumulations of others, 
instead of with their own accumulations. But it doubtless 
gave the traders advantage, and justly so, in the terms of 
the exchange. If the Indians had brought their furs to the 
mart where the dealers had brought their blankets, there 
would have been exchange of capital for capital. As the 
Indians had not accumulated any furs, and were only hoping 
to accumulate, there was, on the part of the white traders, 
an advance of a present good for a remote equivalent. The 
traders had doubtless suffered by the casualties which pre¬ 
vented the Indians completing their engagements. They 
made a sudden, and therefore an unjust, change in their 
system. The forbearance of the Indians shows their respect 
for the rights of property, and their consequent appreciation 


450 


SECURITY OP PROPERTY. 


of their own interests. They might, possessing the physical 
superiority, have seized the blankets and ammunition of the 
traders. If so, their exchanges would have been at an end; 
the capital would have gone to stimulate other industry; 
the Indians would have ripped up the goose with the golden 
eggs. 

It is easy to see that the employment of capital, through 
the agency of credit, in all the minute channels of advanced 
commerce, must wholly depend upon the faith which one 
man has in the stability and the honesty of another; and 
also upon the certainty of the protection of the laws which 
establish security of property, to enforce the fulfillment of 
the contract. 

It is necessary to establish this point of the security of 
property, as one of the rights, and we may add as the 
greatest right, of industry; and therefore, at the risk of be¬ 
ing thought tedious, we may call attention to the general 
state of the argument in reply to some who hold that the 
rights of property, and the rights of labor, are antagonistic. 

The value of an article produced is the labor required for 
its production. 

Capital, the accumulation of past labor, represents the en¬ 
tire amount of that labor which is not consumed; it is the 
old labor stored up for exchange with new labor. 

Those who attach an exclusive value to new labor as dis¬ 
tinguished from old labor—or labor as distinguished from 
capital—say that the new production shall be stimulated by 
the old production, without allowing the old production to 
be exchanged against the new; that is, that the old produc¬ 
tion shall be an instrument for the reward of new labor, but 
not a profitable one to its possessor. 

The doctrine therefore amounts to this; that labor shall 
be exchanged with labor, but not with the produce of labor 
—or that there shall be no exchange whatever; for if the 


SECURITY OF PROPERTY. 


451 


present laborers are to have the sole benefit of the capital, 
the principle of exchange, in which both exchangers benefit, 
is destroyed. There must be an end of all exchanges when 
the things to be exchanged are not equally desired by both 
parties. If the capitalist is to lend or give the capital to 
the laborer without a profit, or without a perfect freedom 
which would entitle him to withhold it if no profit could be 
obtained, the balance is destroyed between capital and la¬ 
bor. Accumulation is then at an end; because the security 
of the thing accumulated to the accumulator is at an end. 
The security is at an end, because if the new labor is to 
have the advantage of the old labor without compensation 
or exchange, the new labor must take the old labor by 
force or fraud; for the new can not proceed without the 
old; labor can not stir without capital. Accumulation, 
therefore being at an end, labor for an object beyond the 
wants of an hour is at an end. Society resolves itself into 
its first elements. 

Strabo, the ancient geographer, has described a tribe 
among whom the title of the priest to the priesthood was 
acquired by having murdered his predecessor; and conse¬ 
quently the business of the priest in possession was not to 
discharge the duties of the priesthood, but to watch, sword 
in hand, to defend himself against the new claimant to the 
office. If the principle were to be recognized, that the accu¬ 
mulation of former labor belongs to the present laborers ; 
and that the best title to the accumulation is to have added 
nothing toward it, but only to be willing to add—the title 
of the laborers in possession would require to be main- 
tamed by a constant encounter with new claimants; as the 
priest of Strabo, who had dispossessed the previous priest, 
had to dread a similar expulsion from his office, by a new 
violence. 

The course of national misery resulting from national dis- 


452 


SECURITY OF PROPERTY. 


orders always begins with financial embarrassment; by the 
destruction of capital, or its withdrawal from all useful 
works. Capital was circulated only because it could be 
circulated with security. If the present capitalists were 
driven away, as some reasoners would imply might easily 
be done, and the laborers were left to work the tools and 
steam-engines—to labor in the manufactories, and to in¬ 
habit the houses of the present capitalists—production could 
not go on an hour, unless the appropriation of the plunder 
were secured to the individual plunderers. 

In speaking of credit, then, we naturally turn to the only 
foundation upon which credit rests—the security of prop¬ 
erty. Commercial men, who know how easily credit is 
destroyed by individual guilt or imprudence, also know 
how easily it is interrupted, generally by a combination of 
circumstances over which an individual, apart from a na¬ 
tion, has no control. The instant that any circumstances 
take place which weaken the general confidence in the 
security of property, credit is withdrawn. The ‘fixed cap¬ 
ital remains—the tools and warehouses stand—the shops 
are open; but production languishes, labor is suspended. 
The stocks of consumable commodities for the maintenance 
of labor may still in part exist, but they do not reach the 
laborer through the usual channels. Then men say, and 
say truly, confidence is shaken; the usual relations of so¬ 
ciety are disturbed. Capital fences itself round with pru¬ 
dence—hesitates to go on accumulating—refuses to put 
its existence in peril—withdraws in great part from jwo- 
duction— 


“ Spreads its light wings, and in a moment flies.” 

Within the last few years we have had before our eyes a 
fearful example of the universal evil created by the sudden 
loss of confidence in the security of property. The revolu- 


SECURITY OF PROPERTY. 


453 


tion of 1848 in France, which overthrew the government 
of Louis Philippe, was associated with a general belief that 
the whole fabric of society in that country was about to 
be shaken in the overthrow of capital. The capital was 
instantly withdrawn from circulation; there was no ex¬ 
change ; there was no labor. The more immediate suffer¬ 
ers were the workmen themselves; and the mode in which 
the ruling power relieved them by giving forced employ¬ 
ment was wholly unavailing, except as a temporary expe¬ 
dient. After several dreadful months of tumult and blood¬ 
shed, a little confidence was restored by the pressure of an 
armed force; and when at length a government was estab¬ 
lished that rested upon security of property, it was hailed 
as the greatest of all blessings, although accompanied with 
some evils to which Americans, especially, can not shut 
their eyes. When capital and labor could once more work 
in a safe union, France quickly developed those great nat¬ 
ural resources with which she is blessed; and the ingenuity 
of her people was again called into activity, to carry for¬ 
ward and perfect those resources by higher and higher 
exertions of science and skill. 

When the great body of the people of a country are so 
generally educated as to know that it is the interest of the 
humblest and the poorest that property shall be secure, 
there will be little occasion for fencing round property 
with guards, against the secret violence of the midnight 
robber, or the open daring of the noonday mob. “ It is an 
enlightened moral public sentiment that must spread its 
wings over our dwellings, and plant a watchman at our 
doors.”* A very little insecurity destroys the working of 
capital. The cloth trade of Venders, a town in France, 
was utterly ruined, because the morals of the people in the 


* Everett’s “Address to the Working Man’s Party 


454 


SECURITY OF PROPERTY. 


town were so bad, and the police so ineffectual, that the 
thefts in the various stages of the manufacture amounted 
to eight per cent, upon the whole quantity produced. The 
trade of the place, therefore, was destroyed; and the capi¬ 
tal went to encourage labor in places where the rights of 
property were better respected. 

But, generally speaking, the security of property is not 
so much weakened by plunder, as by those incessant con¬ 
tentions which harass the march of capital and labor; and 
keep up an irritation between the classes of the capitalists 
and the laborers, who ought to be united in the most in¬ 
timate compact for a common good. These irritations 
most frequently exhibit themselves in the shape of com¬ 
binations for the advance of wages. We have no hesita¬ 
tion in declaring our opinion that it is the positive duty of 
the working-man to obtain as high wages as he can extract 
out of the joint products of capital and labor; and that he 
has an equal right to unite with other workmen in making 
as good a bargain as he can, consistently with the rights of 
others, for his contribution of industry to the business of 
production. But it is also necessary for us to declare our 
conviction that, in too many cases, the working men 
attempt an object which no single exertion, and no union 
however formidable or complete, can ever accomplish. 
They attempt to force wages beyond the point at which 
they could be maintained, with reference to the demand for 
the article produced; and if they succeed they extinguish 
the demand, and therefore extinguish the power of working 
at any wages. They drive the demand, and therefore the 
supply, into new channels; and they thrust out capital 
from among them, to work in other places where it can 
work with freedom and security. Above all, such combi¬ 
nations, and the resistance which they call up, have a tend¬ 
ency to loosen the bonds of mutual regard which ought to 


APPLICATIONS OF PRODUCTION. 


455 


subsist between capitalists and laborers. Their real interests 
are one and the same. 

All men are united in one bond of interests, and rights, 
and duties; and although each of us have particular in¬ 
terests, the parts which we play in society are so frequently 
changing, that under one aspect we have each an interest 
contrary to that which we have under another aspect. It 
is in this way that we find ourselves suddenly bound closely 
■with those against whom we thought ourselves opposed a 
moment before; and thus no class can ever be said to be 
inimical to another class. In the midst, too, of all these 
instantaneous conflicts and unions, we are all interchange¬ 
ably related in the double interest of capitalists and con¬ 
sumers—that is, w r e have each and all an interest that 
property shall be respected, and that production shall bo 
carried forward to its utmost point of perfection, so as to 
make its products accessible to all. The power of produc¬ 
tion, in its greatest developments of industry, is really 
addressed to the satisfaction of the commonest wants. If 
production, as in some despotic countries, were principally 
laboring that some men might wear cloth of gold while 
others went naked, then we should say that production was 
exclusively for the rich oppressor. But, thank God, the 
man who exclusively wears “purple and fine linen every 
day” has ceased to exist. The looms do not work for him 
alone, but for the great mass of the people. It is to the 
staple articles of consumption that the capitals of manufac¬ 
tures and commerce address their employment. Their em¬ 
ployment depends upon the ability of the great body of the 
people to purchase what they produce. The courtiers of 
the fifteenth century in France carried boxes of sugar-plums 
in their pockets, which they offered to each other as a 
constant compliment; the courtiers of the next age carried 
gingerbread in the same way; and lastly, the luxury of 


456 


INCREASE OF COMFORTS. 


snuff drove out the sugar-plums and the gingerbread. But 
the consumption of tobacco would never have furnished 
employment to thousands, and a large revenue to the state, 
if the use of snuff had rested with the courtiers. The pro¬ 
ducers, consequently, having found the largest, and there¬ 
fore the most wealthy class of consumers among the work¬ 
ing men, care little whether the Peer wears a silk or a 
velvet coat, so that the Peasant has a clean shirt. When 
capital and labor work with freedom and security, the wants 
of all are supplied, because there is cheap production. It 
is a bad state of society where 

“ One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade.” 

Those who like the brocade may still wear it in a state of 
things where the rights of industry are understood; but 
the rags, taking the average condition of the members of 
society, are banished to the lands from which capital is 
driven—while those who labor with skill, and, therefore, 
with capital, have decent clothes, comfortable dwellings, 
wholesome food, abundant fuel, medical aid in sickness, the 
comfort and amusement of books in health. These goods, 
we have no hesitation in saying, all depend upon the se¬ 
curity of property ; and he that would destroy that security 
by force or fraud is the real destroyer of the comforts of 
those humbler classes whose rights he pretends to advocate. 

The principles which we maintain, that the interests of 
all men, and of the poorer classes especially, are necessarily 
advanced in a constantly increasing measure by the in¬ 
crease of capital and skill, have been put so strikingly by 
a philosophical writer, that we can not forbear quoting so 
valuable an authority in support and illustration of our 
opinions: 

“ The advantage conferred by the augmentation of our 
physical resources, through the medium of increased knowl- 


INCREASE OF COMFORTS. 


457 


edge and improved art, have this peculiar and remarkable 
property—that they are in their nature diffusive, and can 
not be enjoyed in any exclusive manner by a few. An 
eastern despot may extort the riches and monopolize the 
art of his subjects for his own personal use ; he may spread 
around him an unnatural splendor and luxury, and stand 
in strange and preposterous contrast with the general pen¬ 
ury and discomfort of his people ; he may glitter in jewels 
of gold and raiment of needle-work; but the wonders of 
well-contrived and executed manufacture which we use 
daily, and the comforts which have been invented, tried, 
and improved upon by thousands, in every form of domestic 
convenience, and for every ordinary purpose of life, can 
never be enjoyed by him. T o produ cejLStat£,of things in 
which the physical advantages of civilized life can exist in a 
high degree, the stimulus of increasing comforts and con¬ 
stantly elevated desires must have been felt by millions; 
since it is not in the power of a few individuals to create 
that wide demand for useful and ingenious applications, 
which alone can lead to great and rapid improvements, un¬ 
less backed by that arising from the speedy diffusion of the 
same advantages among the mass of mankind.”* 

In looking back upon all the various circumstances which 
we have exhibited as necessary fpr carrying industry to the 
greatest point of productiveness, we think that we must 
have established satisfactorily that the two great elements 
which concur in rendering labor in the highest degree ben¬ 
eficial, are, first, the accumulated results of past labor; and 
second, the contrivances by which manual labor is assisted 
—those contrivances being derived from the accumulations 
of knowledge. Capital and skill, therefore, are essential to 
the productive power of labor. The different degrees in 
which each possesses capital and skill make the difference 

* Sir John Ilerschel’s “ Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy.” 

20 



458 


RELATIONS OF CAPITALIST AND LABORER. 


between a New England manufacturer and a North Ameri¬ 
can savage ; and the less striking gradations in the produc¬ 
tive power of the manufacturer of the present time, and 
the manufacturer of five hundred years ago, may be all re¬ 
solved into the fact that one has at his command a very 
large amount of capital and skill, and that the other could 
only command a very small amount of the same great ele¬ 
ments of production. 

We think, also, that we have shown that the accumula¬ 
tion of former labor in the shape of tangible wealth, and 
the accumulation of former labor in the shape of the no 
less real wealth of knowledge, are processes which go on 
together, each supporting, directing, and regulating the 
other. Knowledge is the offspring of some leisure resulting 
from a more easy supply of the physical wants ; and that 
leisure can not exist unless capital exists, which allows 
some men to live upon former accumulations. Capital, 
therefore, may be said to be the parent of skill, as capital 
and skill united are the encouragers and directors of profit¬ 
able labor. 

We have shown that the only foundation of accumulation 
is security of property; we have shown, too, that labor is 
the most sacred of properties. It results, therefore, that in 
any state of society in which the laws did not equally pro¬ 
tect the capitalist and the laborer as free exchangers, each 
having the most absolute command over his property, com¬ 
patible with a due regard to the rights of the other—in 
such a state where there was no real freedom and no real 
security, there would be very imperfect production; and 
production being imperfect, all men, the capitalists and 
the laborers, would be equally destitute, weak, ignorant, 
and miserable. 

It is under these several conditions, all working together 
with united force, that the entire labor of this country, and 


RELATIONS OF CAPITALIST AND LABORER. 


459 


indeed, of all other countries advanced in civilization, must 
now be directed. The enormous increase of productiveness 
which we have exhibited, in so many operations of industry, 
is chiefly the result of production carried on upon a large 
scale, and working with every possible application of sci¬ 
ence. It is in this sense that Knowledge is Power; and 
skilled labor is a part of that power. 

The mode in which the respective proportions of capitalist 
and laborer are assigned in the division of the products of 
industry, are called by one, profit, by the other, wages. If 
we were writing a treatise on Political Economy, we should 
have to regard rent as distinct from the profits of capital. 
But for our purpose this is unnecessary. We proceed, then, 
to consider the practical relations of profit and wages, as 
they exist among us. Unquestionably, the only solid found¬ 
ation for these relations must be equal justice; without 
which there can be neither permanent prosperity nor in¬ 
creasing intelligence. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


NATURAL LAWS OF WAGES.—STATE-LAWS REGULATING WAGES.—ENACTMENTS REGU¬ 
LATING CONSUMPTION.—THE LABOR-FUND AND THE WANT-FUND.—RATIO OF CAPI¬ 
TAL TO THE POPULATION.—STATE OF INDUSTRY AT THE END OF THE SEVENTEENTH 
CENTURY.—RISE OF MANUFACTURES.—WAGES AND PRICES.—TURNING OVER CAP¬ 
ITAL. 

The old chroniclers relate that the Norman king, Henry 
I., had once a terrible vision, of soldiers, and priests, and 
peasants, surrounding his bed, one band succeeding another, 
and threatening to kill him. The legend became the sub¬ 
ject of illuminated drawings in an ancient MS. preserved at 
Oxford, and one of these represented the tillers of the land, 
with spade, and fork, and scythe, demanding justice. The 
cultivators were loaded wdth heavy exactions, so great that 
the tenants of the crown even offered to give up their plows 
to the king. They plowed, but they reaped not them¬ 
selves. In such a state of things there could be no accumu¬ 
lation, and no profitable labor. The funds for supplying 
the wages of labor were exhausted. The country was de¬ 
populated. 

During the next two centuries, the condition of the En¬ 
glish people had been materially improved. Capital had in¬ 
creased, and so had population. But capital had increased 
faster than population, and hence the improvement. The 
class of free laborers had for the most part succeeded to the 
old class of villeins. Laborers for hire, without understand¬ 
ing the great principles which govern the rate of wages, 
any more than did their masters, would practically seek to 


STATE LAWS REGULATING CONSUMPTION. 461 

measure their earnings according to those principles. The 
lawgivers determined the contrary.* The Statute of La¬ 
borers, Edward III., says: “ Because a great part of the 
people, and especially of workmen and servants, late died ot 
the pestilence, many, seeing the necessity of masters and 
great scarcity of servants, will not serve unless they receive 
excessive wages.” They were therefore to be compelled to 
serve, and they were to serve at the same wages which 
they had received three years before. The ratio of popula¬ 
tion, in consequence of the pestilence, had fallen considera¬ 
bly below, the ratio of accumulated capital seeking to em¬ 
ploy labor. Under the natural laws of demand and supply, 
the scarcity of laborers and the excess of capital would have 
raised the wages of labor. These laws were not to operate. 
Forty years after this enactment of Edward III., comes the 
statute of Richard II., which says that “ Servants and labor¬ 
ers will not, nor by a long season would, serve and labor 
without outrageous and excessive hire, and much more than 
hath been given to such servants and laborers in any time 
past, so that for scarcity of the said servants and laborers 
the husbands and land-tenants may not pay their rents, nor 
scarcely live upon their lands.” Here was a distinct conflict 
between the capitalists seeking profits and the laborers 
seeking wages. The law-makers resolved that the hires of 
the servants and laborers should be “ put in certainty;” and 
they fixed the rate of wages throughout the land. They 
settled the contest in favor of profits, arbitrarily. To avoid 
this interference with the due payments of their labor in 
proportion to the ratio of capital and labor, the husband¬ 
men might have fled to the towns, and some did so. But 
they were met there by the enactment that the artificers 

* We have already noticed the ancient oppressive laws for the regula¬ 
tion of labor. We recur to them here more particularly, as illustrating 
the principle of wages. 


462 ENACTMENTS REGULATING CONSUMPTION. 

should be subject to the same controlling power, and that 
the boy who had labored at the plow and cart till he was 
twelve years old should continue so to labor for the rest of 
his life. This state of things was truly slavery without the 
name. Some such marvelous folly and injustice went on 
for several centuries. But regulating wages, the laws also 
undertook to regulate the cost of food and of clothing— 
their quality, and their consumption—how much people 
should eat, and what coats they should wear. These ab¬ 
surdities also went on for centuries—of course under a per¬ 
petual system of open violation or secret evasion. The peo¬ 
ple, we may safely conclude, never fully believed what their 
rulers told them of their prodigious kindness in managing 
private affairs so much better than individuals could them¬ 
selves. Mr. Sergeant Thorpe, an English judge for the 
northern circuit, in a charge to the grand jury in 1648, tells 
them to be vigilant against servants taking higher wages 
than those allowed by the justices—to enforce the laws 
against everybody who bought every thing for the susten¬ 
ance of man, with intent to make a profit by it—against 
every tradesman who did not produce his wares in conform¬ 
ity with the statutes; wonderful laws, which would not per¬ 
mit the tanner to sell a piece of leather that had not been 
kept twelve months in the tan-pit, and which forbade the 
cloth-maker to use lime in whitening linen cloth. “ And 
thus you see,” says solemn Mr. Sergeant Thorpe, “ how the 
wisdom of the common laws of this nation, and of the par¬ 
liaments, from time to time, hath provided for the security 
and ease of the people; and hath furnished us with a salve 
for every sore ; and gives us rules and instructions how to 
govern ourselves, that we may be helpful and useful to 
one another.”* Instead of providing the salve, it probably 
would have been better not to have made the sore. 

* See the full “ Charge” in the “ Harleian Miscellany.” 


LABOR-FUND AND WANT-FUND. 


463 


But, after all, it is scarcely candid to laugh at the wisdom 
of “ the good old times” in regulating trades, when-in our 
own day, we have had excise laws throughout Great Britain 
which interfered in the most absurd way with production, 
and some of which still interfere. Nor can we look with 
perfect complacency at the manifest impolicy and injustice 
of fixing the rate of wages, when, within the last quarter of 
a century, English justices have been at work all over the 
country to keep down the wages of labor, by paying labor¬ 
ers not in proportion to their earnings, but according to 
their necessities; and raising up a fund for the encourage¬ 
ment of idleness and improvidence, by a diversion of the 
real funds for the maintenance of labor. The Poor Laws of 
England, as they were administered in the beginning and 
middle of the last half century, did this evil, and a great 
deal more; and persons of influence, with the most benevo¬ 
lent intentions, could see no difference between the parish 
allowance to able-bodied laborers, and the wages which 
they could have really commanded for their labor if this 
opposing fund had not been called into action. In those 
times, and even after a strenuous effort had been made to 
bring about an improvement, educated gentlemen used to 
say, “ something must be done to give the laborers employ¬ 
ment upon fair wages and they were accustomed to be¬ 
lieve that “ some plan should be devised whereby work 
should be at hand.”* These gentlemen, and many others, 
did not understand that there is a natural fund for the 
maintenance of labor which is to produce such beneficial re¬ 
sults ; that this fund can not be increased but by the addi¬ 
tion of the results of more profitable labor; that whatever is 
paid out of the fund for the support of profitable labor has 
a direct tendency to lower the rate at which the profitable 

* See the Evidence on Poor-laws before a Committee of the House of 
Commons, 183 b 


464 


LABOR-FUND AND WANT-FUND. 


labor is paid—to prevent the payment of “ fair wagesand 
that there is a “ plan” which requires no devising, because 
our necessities are constantly calling it into operation—the 
natural law of exchange, which makes “ work at hand” 
wherever there is capital to pay for it. Such reasoners also 
held that the laborers were not to seek for the fund “ about 
the country on an uncertainty;” but that the work for the 
laborers “ should be at hand”— u it should be certain.” 
This clearly was not the ordinary labor-fund. That is 
neither always at hand, nor is it always certain. It shifts 
its place according to its necessity for use; it is uncertain in 
its distribution in proportion to the demand upon it. The 
fund which was to work this good was clearly not the 
labor-fund—it was the want- fund; and the mistake that 
these gentlemen and many others fell into was that the 
want-fund had qualities of far greater powers of usefulness 
than the labor-fund; that the parish purse was the purse of 
Fortunatus, always full; that the parish labor-field was like 
the tent of the Indian queen in the Arabian tale—you 
could carry it in the palm of your hand, and yet it would 
give shelter to an army of thousands. All these fallacies 
are now, happily, as much exploded as the laws for the reg¬ 
ulation of wages and the price of commodities. The real 
labor-fund—the accumulation of a portion of the results of 
past labor—is the only fund which can find profitable work 
and pay fair wages. 

It is extremely difficult to ascertain the ratio of capital 
to population at any particular period; yet some approxi¬ 
mations may be made, which, in a degree, may indicate 
the activity or the inertness of the labor-fund, in regard to 
the condition of the laborer. 

According to the commonly received estimates, the popu¬ 
lation of England and Wales was about five millions and a 
half, perhaps six millions, at the end of the seventeenth cen- 


RATIO OF CAPITAL TO POPULATION. 


465 


tuiy; it is now eighteen millions. The inhabited houses, 
according to the hearth-books of 1690,* were one million 
three hundred and twenty thousand. In 1851 they were 
three million two hundred and seventy-eight thousand. 
The hearth-books of 1685 show that, of the houses of En¬ 
gland, five hundred and fifty-four thousand had only one 
chimney—they were mere hovels. 

Gregory King has given “ A Scheme of the Income and 
Expense of the several Families in England, calculated for 
the year 1688.” He considers that, in the aggregate, there 
were five hundred thousand families who were accumula¬ 
tors—that is to say, whose annual expense was less than 
their income. He values this accumulation at three mil¬ 
lions. The number of persons comprised in the accumulat¬ 
ing families was two million six hundred and seventy-five 
thousand. Of this number only one fifth belonged to the 
trading classes—merchants, shopkeepers and tradesmen, 
artisans and handicrafts. The remainder were the land¬ 
holders, farmers, lawyers, clergy, holders of office, and per¬ 
sons in liberal arts and sciences. But there was a large 
non-accumulating class, consisting of two million eight hun¬ 
dred and twenty-five thousand, whom he puts down as 
“ decreasing the wealth of the kingdom”—that is to say, 
that their annual expense exceeded their income; and this 
excess he computes at six hundred and twenty-two thousand 
pounds, which reduces the annual national accumulation to 
two million four hundred thousand pounds. The positive 
plunderers of the national capital were thirty thousand va¬ 
grants, such as gipsies, thieves, and beggars. But England 
was in a happier condition than Scotland at the- same period; 
where, according to Fletcher of Saltoun, there were two 

* Hearth-money was a tax upon houses according to the number of 
chimneys, at the rate of two shillings a chimney, for every house having 
more than two chimneys. 


20* 


466 


RATIO OF CAPITAL TO POPULATION. 


hundred thousand “people begging from door to door,” 
out of a population of one million, for whose suppression he 
saw no remedy hut slavery. England was more favored, 
too, than France; where, as Vauban records, in 1698, more 
than a tenth part of the population of sixteen millions were 
beggars, in the extremity of hunger and nakedness.* But 
we may he sure that in England the two million eight hun¬ 
dred and twenty-five thousand “ laboring people, out-serv¬ 
ants, cottagers, and paupers,” who are put down by Gregory 
King as non-accumulators, were working upon very insuffi¬ 
cient means, and that they were constantly pressing upon 
the fund for the maintenance of profitable labor. It is a 
curious fact that he classes “cottagers and paupers” to¬ 
gether ; but we can account for it when we consider how 
much of the land of the country was uninclosed, and how 
many persons derived a scanty subsistence from the com¬ 
mons, upon which they were “ squatters,” living in mean 
huts with “ one chimney.” 

The small number of “artisans and handicrafts,” com¬ 
prising only sixty thousand families, is of itself a sufficient 
indication that English manufactures, properly so called, 
were of very trifling amount. In various parts of this vol¬ 
ume we have incidentally mentioned how slowly the great 
industries of England grew into importance. At the period 
of which we are now speaking, nearly every article of cloth¬ 
ing was, in many districts, of domestic production, and was 
essentially connected with the tillage of the land. The flax 
and the wool were spun at home; the stockings were knit; 
the shoes were often untanned hide nailed upon heavy clogs. 
Furniture there was little beyond the rough bench and the 
straw bed. The fuel came from the woods and hedges. 
About forty thousand of the cottages mentioned in the 
hearth-books had some land belonging to them; and, to 

* See the passage in Dunoyer, “ Liberty du Travail,” tom. i., p. 41G. 


RATIO OF CAPITAL TO POPULATION. 467 

prevent the growth of a “ squatter” population, it was the 
business of the grand jury to present, as a nuisance, all 
newly-erected cottages that had not four acres of land at¬ 
tached to them. There was a contest perpetually going on 
between the more favored portion who had regular means 
of subsistence, and the unhappy many who were pressing 
upon those means, in all the various forms of pauperism. 
One of the means of keeping down this class was to jirevent 
them having dwellings. 

Toward the end of the seventeenth century, then, we see 
that there w r as some accumulation of capital, however small. 
There was then a vague feeling among the accumulators 
that something might be saved by setting the unemployed 
and the starving to other work than was provided for them 
in the fields. Population was pressing hard upon capital. 
It pressed, chiefly, in the shape of increasing demands upon 
the poor-rate. The remedy universally proposed was “ to 
set the poor to work.” The notion was extremely crude 
as to the mode in which this was to be effected; but there 
was a sort of universal agreement expressed by sober econo¬ 
mists as well as visionary projectors, that the more general 
introduction of manufactures would remedy the evil. Of 
course, the first thing to be done was to prohibit foreign 
manufactures by enormous duties; and then they were to go 
to work vigorously at home, knowing very little of the arts 
in which foreigners were greatly their superiors. But they 
were to go to work, not in the ordinary way of profitable 
industry, by the capitalist working for profit employing 
the laborer for wages, but by withholding from the poor 
the greater part of the want-fund, and converting it into a 
labor-fund, by setting up manufactures under the manage¬ 
ment of the poor-law administrators. Here, in these “work- 
houses,” was the linen trade to be cultivated. A Mr. Firmin 
set up a work-house in London, of the results of which, after 


468 


WORKHOUSE INDUSTRY. 


four years, he thus speaks: “ This, I am sure, is the worst 
that can be said of it, that it hath not been yet brought to 
bear its own charges.” Sir Matthew Hale was for setting 
up a public manufactory of coarse cloth, of which the 
charges for materials and labor in producing thirty-two 
yards would be £11 15s. He calculated that the cloth, if 
sold, would only yield £12. The excellent judge does not 
make any calculation of the cost of implements, or rent, or 
superintendence. He desires to employ fifty-six poor peo¬ 
ple, who are paid by the parish £400 per annum, and by 
this cloth manufacture he will give them the £400 for their 
work, and save the parish their cost. One thing is forgot¬ 
ten. The pauper labor yielding no profit, and consequently 
preventing any accumulation, the laborers must be kept 
down to the minimum of subsistence. The earnings of the 
artisan and handicraft were estimated by Gregory King, at 
that period, at thirty-eight pounds per annum. These were 
the wages of skilled laborers. The pauper laborers were un¬ 
skilled. If these schemes had not broken down by their own 
weight, and work-house manufactories had gone on produc¬ 
ing a competition of unskilled laborers with skilled, the rate 
of wages would have been more and more deteriorated, and 
the amount of poor seeking work-house employment as a last 
resource more and more increased. Experience has very 
satisfactorily demonstrated that these schemes for employ¬ 
ing the poor ought to be strictly limited to the production 
of articles of necessity for their own consumption. Even 
the production of such articles is scarcely remunerating— 
that is, the produce scarcely returns the cost of materials 
and superintendence. Even the boasted Free and Pauper 
Colonies of Holland have turned out to be commercial fail¬ 
ures. They are not self-sustaining. The want of skill in 
the colonists, and their disinclination to labor, having no 
immediate individual benefit from their labors, have com- 


RISE OF MANUFACTURES. 


469 


bined to produce the result that one good day-laborer is 
worth five colonists working in common. There are also 
tenants of small colonial farms, at a low rent, and having 
many advantages. They are not so prosperous as the little 
farmers out of the colony, who pay a higher rent, and have 
no incidental benefits. The solution of the question is thus 
given : “ The certainty that the society will maintain them, 
whether they save or not, has an unfavorable influence on 
their habits.”* 

The increase of population was very small in England 
during the first fifty years of the eighteenth century. It 
absolutely declined at one period. The <£2,400,000 that 
were calculated by Gregory King as annual savings, were 
probably more and more trenched upon by pauperism and 
war, by “ malice domestic, foreign levy,” under a disputed 
succession. The upper classes were licentious and extrava¬ 
gant ; the laborers in towns were drunkards to an excess 
that now seems hardly credible. Hogarth’s u Gin Lane” 
was scarcely an exaggeration of the destitution and misery 
that attended this national vice. About the middle of the 
century, or soon after, sprang up many of the great me¬ 
chanical improvements which made the English a manufac¬ 
turing people ; and which, in half a century, added a third 
to the population. In spite of the most expensive war in 
which England had ever been engaged, the accumulated 
capital, chiefly in consequence of these discoveries and im¬ 
provements, had increased as fast as the population in the 
second fifty years of the eighteenth century. In the present 
century the population has doubled in fifty years, and the 
accumulated capital has more than doubled. Population 
has been recently increasing at the rate of one and a half 
per cent.; capital has been increasing at the rate of two 

* Sir John M‘NeilTs “ Report on Free and Pauper Colonies in Holland.” 
1853. 


470 


WAGES AND PRICES. 


and a half per cent. It is this accumulation which has been 
steadily raising the rate of wages in many employments of 
industry; while the chemical and mechanical arts, the abund¬ 
ant means of rapid transit, the abolition or reduction of 
duties upon great articles of consumption, and the freedom 
of commercial intercourse, have given all the receivers of 
wages a greatly increased command of articles of necessity, 
and even of what used to be thought luxuries. 

There is nothing more difficult in economical inquiries 
than the attempt to ascertain what was the actual rate of 
wages at any given period. The fluctuations in the value 
of money enter into this question, more or less, at every 
period of history. We find the nominal rate of wages con¬ 
stantly increasing, from one generation to another, but we 
can not at all be certain that the real rate is increasing. 
That nominal rate always requires to be compared with the 
prices of the necessaries of life. What pertains to wages 
pertains to all fixed money-payments. A Fellow of an En¬ 
glish college applied to Bishop Fleetwood to know if he 
could conscientiously hold his fellowship, when the statutes 
of the college, made in the time of Henry VI., say that no 
one shall so hold who has an estate of £5 a year. The Fel¬ 
low had an estate of much larger nominal amount. The 
bishop made a very valuable collection of the prices of com¬ 
modities, and he thus answers the conscientious inquirer : 

“ If for twenty years together (from 1440 to 1460) the 
common prices of wheat in England were 6s. 8d. the quar¬ 
ter; and if, from 1686 to 1706, the common prices of wheat 
were 40s. the quarter ; ’tis plain that £5 in Henry VI. time 
would have purchased fifteen quarters of wheat, for which 
you must have paid, for these last twenty years, £30. So 
that £30 now , would be 1 no more than equivalent to £5 in 
the reign of Henry VI. Thus if oats, from 1440 to 1460, 
were generally at 2s. the quarter, and from 1686 to 1706 


WAGES AND PRICES. 


471 


were at 12s. the quarter, ’tis manifest that 12s. now would 
be no more than equivalent to 2s. then , which is but a sixth 
part of it. Thus, if beans were then 5s. and now 30s. the 
quarter, the same proportion would be found betwixt £5 
and £30. But you must not expect that every thing will 
answer thus exactly. Ale, for instance, was, during the 
time of your founder, at three halfpence the gallon ; but it 
has been, ever since you were born, at 8 d. at the least— 
which is but five times more, and a little over. So that £5 
heretofore (between 1440 and 1460) would purchase no 
more ale than somewhat above £25 would now. Again, 
good cloth, such as was to serve the best doctor in your 
university for his gown, was (between 1440 and 1460) at 3s. 
7 d. the yard; at which rate £5 would have purchased twenty- 
nine yards, or thereabouts. Now you may purchase that 
quantity of fine cloth at somewhat less, I think, than £25. 
So that £25 now would be an equivalent to your £5 then , 
two hundred and fifty years since, if you pay about 18s. the 
yard for your cloth. I think I have good reason to believe 
that beef, mutton, bacon, and other common provisions of 
life, were six times as cheap in Henry YI. reign as they 
have been for these last twenty years. And, therefore, I 
can see no cause why £28 or £30 per annum should now be 
accounted a greater estate than £5 was heretofore betwixt 
1440 and 1460.”* 

But we are not to infer from these considerations that the 
wages of labor ought to fluctuate with the price of com¬ 
modities, or that, practically, they do so fluctuate. If this 
were the principle of wages, every improvement which 
lowers the price of commodities would lower the rewards of 
labor. Almost every article of necessity is cheaper now 
than it was ten years ago, taking the average of years; and 
the larger amount of this cheapness has been produced by 
* Chronicon Preciosum, 1745, p. 136. 


472 


WAGES AND PRICES. 


improvements in manufactures, by facilities of communica¬ 
tion, and by the removal of taxation. At the same time, 
taking the average of years and of employments, wages 
have risen. There must be some general cause in operation 
to produce this result. 

The wages of labor can not be reduced below the stand¬ 
ard necessary to support the laborer and his family while he 
produces. If he can not obtain this support he ceases to be 
a producer. He is starved out of existence, or he falls upon 
the public fimd for the support of want, or he becomes a 
beggar or a thief. In states of society where there is no 
accumulating capital, the laborer necessarily receives low 
wages, because he maintains himself at the minimum of 
subsistence. The poet Spenser, writing nearly three centu¬ 
ries ago, upon the miseries of Ireland, describes the cottiers 
as inhabiting “ swine-sties rather than houses.” Swift, long 
after, describes the same state of things : “ There are thou¬ 
sands of poor wretches who think themselves blessed if they 
can obtain a hut worse than the squire’s dog-kennel, and an 
acre of ground for a potato plantation.” This condition of 
society unhappily lasted up to our own day. If the Irish 
cottier had been a laborer for wages instead of deriving his 
miserable living direct from the land, he would have been 
no better off, unless his desire for something higher than 
the coarsest food, and the most wretched lodging, had set 
some limit to the increase of population beyond the increase 
of capital. Population necessarily increases faster than sub¬ 
sistence when there is no restraint upon the increase by the 
disposition to accumulate on the part of the laborer. There 
maybe accumulation in the form of his money-savings; and 
there may be accumulation in an increase of the conven¬ 
iences of life by which he is surrounded. When there is 
neither money saved nor comforts increased—when there 
is no accumulation for the gratification of other wants than 


WAGES AND PRICES. 


473 


that of food—competition is driving the laborers to the 
lowest point of misery. The competition in Ireland was 
for the possession of land, at an extravagant rent, out of 
the labor upon which the cottier could only obtain the very 
lowest amount of necessaries for his subsistence. If, in the 
habits of the whole body of the peasantry, clothes and fur¬ 
niture had been as necessary as potatoes, the oppressive 
exactions of the landlords must have yielded to what then 
would have been the natural rate, whether we call it profit 
or wages, necessary for the maintenance of that peasantry; 
and the necessity, on their part, for maintaining the aver¬ 
age status of their class, would, in a considerable degree, 
have kept down the inordinate increase of the people. A 
century ago, the great body of the working people of En¬ 
gland eat rye bread, which is cheaper than wheaten. If all 
the workers were to come back to rye bread, the rate at 
which they could be comfortably maintained would be 
somewhat less ; and unless the accumulation from the econ¬ 
omy were expended universally in some improved accom¬ 
modation, laborers would gradually arise who would be 
contented with the smaller amount necessary for subsist¬ 
ence, and the greater number of laborers seeking for 
wages would depress the amount paid to each individual 
laborer. 

In looking back upon the historical evidence which we 
possess, imperfect as it is, of the condition of society at 
various periods of English industrial progress, we can not 
doubt that there has been a process constantly going for¬ 
ward by which the circumstances of all classes have been 
steadily raised. The increase of the means of the various 
classes at the present day as compared with the end of the 
seventeenth century, has certainly been threefold. We 
have abundance of conveniences and comforts of which the 
people who lived one hundred and fifty years ago had no 


474 


TURNING OYER CAPITAL. 


notion, which have been bestowed upon us by manufactures, 
and commerce, and scientific agriculture. 

We have already stated and illustrated the general prin¬ 
ciple that the wages of labor are determined by the accu¬ 
mulations of capital, compared with the number of laborers. 
Hence it necessarily results that, as has been forcibly 
expressed, “ the additional capital, whenever it is produc¬ 
tively employed, will tend as certainly to the benefit of the 
working population at large as if the owner were a trustee 
for their benefit.”* But the profitable employment of 
capital depends very greatly upon activity, knowledge, and 
foresight on the part of the capitalist. It was for the want 
of these qualities that all the old schemes for providing 
labor out of a common stock chiefly broke down. Sir 
Matthew Hale, in his plans for employing paupers in spin¬ 
ning flax and weaving cloth, knew theoretically the truth 
that the amount of capital available for the payment of 
labor would be largely increased by the rapidity with 
which it might be turned over. He says, “ If it could be 
supposed that the cloth could be sold as soon as made— 
which is not, I confess, reasonably to be expected—then a 
stock of £24 would, by its continual return, provide mate¬ 
rials and pay the workmen for one loom’s work in perpetu¬ 
ity.” The “ if” expresses the difference between individual 
commercial activity and knowledge, and official sluggish¬ 
ness and incapacity. But it also expresses the difference 
between the commerce of our days, and that of the end of 
the seventeenth century. Without roads, or canals, or rail¬ 
roads, how difficult was it to bring the seller and the buyer 
together! All manufactures would be, for the most part, 
local. The cloths of the manufacturer might go to the 
neighboring fairs on pack-horses; and thence slowly spread 
through the country by peddlers and other small dealers; 

* Morison, “Labor and Capital,” p. 24. 


TURNING OVER CAPITAL. 


475 


and the proceeds might return to the manufacturer at the 
end of a year. But the rapid turning over of capital which 
begins with buying a bale of cotton at New York, and 
having it in California in the shape of calico in three months, 
with the bill that is to pay for it drawn at Boston, accepted 
in San Francisco, and discounted in New York in another 
three months, is a turning over of capital which was scarcely 
imagined by the projectors and practical traders of a cen¬ 
tury ago. 

This rapid turning over of capital, and the consequent 
more rapid accumulation of the labor-fund, depends upon 
the confidence of the capitalist that his capital will work 
to a profit. It will not so work if he is to be undersold. 
If wages could press upon profit beyond a certain ascer¬ 
tained limit, he would be undersold. The home competition 
of localities and individuals is perpetually forcing on the 
most economical arrangements in production. The foreign 
competition is doing so still more. If we have increased 
productiveness here, through scientific application, the 
same increased productiveness, from the same cause, is 
going forward elsewhere. “ Price-Currents” supply a per¬ 
petual barometer of industrial cloud or sunshine; and the 
manufacturer and merchant have constantly to unfurl or 
furl their sails according to the indications. Whenever 
there is shipwreck, the ship’s crew and the captain partake 
of a common calamity; and the calamity is always precipi¬ 
tated and made more onerous when, from any cause, there 
is not cordial sympathy and agreement. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


WHAT POLITICAL ECONOMY TEACHES.—SKILLED LABOR AND TRUSTED LABOR.— 
COMPETITION OF UNSKILLED LABOR.—COMPETITION OF UNCAPITALED LABOR.— 
ITINERANT TRADERS.—THE CONTRAST OF ORGANIZED INDUSTRY.—FACTORY-LABOR 
AND GARRET-LABOR.—COMMUNISM.—PROPOSALS FOR STATE ORGANIZATION OF 
LABOR.—SOCLAL PUBLISHING ESTABLISHMENT.—PRACTICAL CO-OPERATION.—DUTIES 

OF THE EMPLOYED.—DUTIES OF EMPLOYERS.—CONCLUSION. 

0 

There is a passage in Wordsworth’s “ Excursion” in 
which he describes the benevolent and philosophical hero of 
his poem, a peddler, listening to the complaints of poverty, 
and searching into the causes of the evil: > 

“Nor was he loth to enter ragged huts, 

Huts where his charity was blest; his voice 
Heard as the voice of an experienced friend. 

And, sometimes, where the poor man held dispute 
With his own mind, unable to subdue 
Impatience, through inaptness to perceive 
General distress in his particular lot; 

Or cherishing resentment, or in vain 
Struggling against it, with a soul perplex’d 
And finding in herself no steady power 
To draw the line of comfort that divides 
Calamity, the chastisement of Heaven, 

From the injustice of our brother men; 

To him appeal was made as to a judge; 

Who, with an understanding heart, allay’d 
The perturbation; listen’d to the plea; 

Resolv’d the dubious point; and sentence gave 
So grounded, so applied, that it was heard 
With soften’d spirit—e’en when it condemn’d.” 


WHAT POLITICAL ECONOMY TEACHES. 477 

The poor man is accustomed to hold dispute with his own 
mind; he thinks his particular lot is worse than the general 
lot; his soul is perplexed in considering whether his con¬ 
dition is produced by a common law of society, or by the 
injustice of his fellow-men; the experienced friend listens, 
discusses, argues—but he argues in a temper that produces 
a softened spirit. The adviser soothes rather than inflames, 
by dealing with such questions with “an understanding 
heart.” He unites the sympathizing heart with the reason¬ 
ing understanding. 

Now, we may fairly inquire if, during the many unfortu¬ 
nate occasions that are constantly arising of contests for 
what are called the rights of labor against what is called 
the tyranny of capital, those who are the most immediate 
sufferers in the contest are addressed with the “ understand¬ 
ing heart ?” If argument be used at all, the principles which 
govern the relations between capital and labor are put too 
often dictatorially or patronizingly before them, as dry, ab¬ 
stract propositions. They are not set forth as matters of 
calm inquiry, whose truths, when dispassionately examined, 
may be found to lead to the conclusion that a steadily- 
increasing rate of wages, affording the employed a greater 
amount of comforts and conveniences, is the inevitable re¬ 
sult of increasing capital, under conditions which depend 
upon the workers themselves. The result is generally such 
as took place in a recent English strike, where one of the 
leaders exclaimed, “ The sooner we can rout political econ¬ 
omy from the world, the better it will be for the working- 
classes.” It might, indeed, as well be said, the sooner we 
can rout acoustics from the world, the better it will be for 
those who have ears to hear; but the absurdity would not 
be corrected by a mathematical demonstration to those 
who did not comprehend mathematics. The same person 
held that political economy was incompatible with the 


478 


SKILLED AND TRUSTED LABOR. 


Gospel precept of doing unto others as we would be done 
unto, because it encourages buying in the cheapest market 
and selling in the dearest; and he necessarily assumed that 
political economy recommends the capitalist to buy labor 
cheap and sell it dear. We have not learned that calmly 
and kindly he was told, in the real spirit of political econ¬ 
omy, that it is impossible that, by any individual or local 
advantage the capitalist may possess, he can long depress 
wages below the rate of the whole country, because other 
capitalists would enter into competition for the employment 
of labor, and raise the average rate. If Wordsworth’s ex¬ 
perienced friend had heard this perversion of the meaning 
of the axiom about markets, he would have said, we think, 
that to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest 
simply means, in commerce, to buy an article where its 
cheapness represents abundance, and to sell it in a place 
where its dearness represents a want of it and a consequent 
demand—even as he, the peddler, bought a piece of cloth 
where there was plenty of cloth, and sold it for a profit 
where there was little cloth. The business of mercantile 
knowledge and enterprise is to discover and apply these 
conditions ; so that, if a trader were to buy hides in New 
York and carry them to Buenos Ayres, he would reverse 
these conditions—he would buy in the dearest market and 
sell in the cheapest. Political economy—the declaimer 
against it might have been told—says that to produce 
cheap is essential to large demand, and constantly-increas¬ 
ing demand; but it does not say that cheap production 
necessarily implies diminished wages. It says that cheap 
production, as a consequence of increased production, de¬ 
pends upon the constantly-increasing use of capital in pro¬ 
duction, and the constantly-diminishing amount of mere 
manual labor compared with the quantity produced—which 
result is effected by the successive application of all the ap- 


UNSKILLED LABOR. 


479 


pliances of science to the means of production. At every 
step of scientific improvement there is a demand for labor 
of a higher character than existed without the science. At 
every extended organization of industry, resulting from an 
extended demand, not only skilled labor, but trusted labor, 
becomes more and more in request; and the average amount 
of all labor is better paid. A bricklayer is paid more than 
the man who mixes his mortar, because one is a skilled 
laborer, and has learned his art by some expenditure of 
time, which is capital. The merchant’s book-keeper is paid 
more than his porter, because the one has an office of high 
trust and responsibility, and the other a duty to perform of 
less importance, and for which a far greater number of men 
wanting hire are fitted. We could wish that not only “ in 
ragged huts,” but in well-appointed houses, were the things 
better understood that political economy really does say. 

The process which has been steadily going on among us 
for increasing the demand for skill and trustworthiness has 
no doubt produced a diminution of the funds for employ in 
which neither skill nor trust is required. Thus a great 
amount of suffering is constantly presented to our view, 
which benevolence has set about relieving, in our time, 
with a zeal which shows how fully it is acknowledged that 
the great principle, to “ Love one another,” is not to evapo¬ 
rate in sentiment, but is to be ripened in action. As na¬ 
tions, England and America have never been indifferent to 
the command, “ Feed the hungry.” But the “ understand¬ 
ing heart” has discovered that many of the miseries of 
society may be relieved by other modes as effectually as by 
alms-giving, and perhaps much more effectually. Whether 
some of these efforts may be misdirected, in no degree de¬ 
tracts from the value of the principle which seeks the pre¬ 
vention of misery rather than the relief. One of the most 
obvious forms in which misery has presented itself in our 


480 COMPETITION OF UNSKILLED LABOR. 

large cities has arisen from the competition among labor 
which may be called unskilled, because there are a numer¬ 
ous unemployed body of laborers at hand to do the same 
work, in which there is no special skill. This was the case 
with the sempstresses of London; and the famous “ Song 
of the Shirt” struck a note to which there was a responding 
chord in every bosom. But the terrible evils of the low 
wages of shirt-making would not have been relieved by a 
universal agreement of the community to purchase none 
but shirts that, by their price, could afford to give higher 
wages to the shirt-makers. The higher wages would have 
infallibly attracted more women and more children to the 
business of shirt-making. The straw-platters, the embroid¬ 
erers, the milliners would have rushed to shirt-making; and, 
unless there had been a constantly-increasing rate of price 
charged to the wearers of shirts, and therefore a constant 
forced contribution to the capital devoted to shirt-making, 
the payment to one shirt-maker would have come to be 
divided among two; and the whole body, thus doubled by 
a rate of wages disproportioned to the rate of other labor 
requiring little peculiar skill, would have been in a worse 
condition in the end than in the beginning. 

Whatever suffering may arise out of the competition that 
must exist between mere manual labor, and also between 
that labor which is displayed in the practice of some art 
easily learned, capable of exercise by both sexes, and in 
which very young children may readily engage—it is 
scarcely fair that those who witness the suffering of the em¬ 
ployed at very low wages should instantly conclude that the 
employers are extortioners and oppressors. A branch of 
trade which seems inconsiderable as regards the article pro¬ 
duced is often found in a particular locality, and furnishes 
employment to large numbers. In the London parish of 
Cripplegate there are great quantities of tooth-brushes 


COMPETITION OF UNSKILLED LABOR. 481 

made. The handle is formed by the lathe, in which skilled 
labor is employed. The hair is cut by machinery. The 
holes in the handle in which the hair is inserted are also 
pierced by machines. But the insertion of the hair, and the 
fastening it by wire, are done by hand. Excellent people, 
who, with a strong sense of Christian duty, enter “ ragged 
huts” to relieve and to advise, see a number of women and 
children daily laboring at the one task of fastening the hair 
in tooth-brushes; and they learn that the wages paid are 
miserably low. They immediately conclude that the wages 
should be higher; because in the difference between the 
retail price of a tooth-brush and the manufacturing cost 
there must necessarily be large profits. They say, there¬ 
fore, that the wholesale manufacturer is unjust in not giv¬ 
ing higher wages. But the retail price of tooth-brushes, 
however high, does not enable the manufacturer, necessa¬ 
rily, to give a payment more considerable than the average 
of such labor to the women and children who very quickly 
learn the art of fastening the hair. The price he can pay is 
to be measured by the average price of such labor all over 
the country. It is not in the least unlikely that the manu¬ 
facturer in Cripplegate may not receive a fourth of the price 
at which a tooth-brush is sold. The profits are determined 
by the average of all his transactions. He has to sell as 
cheaply as possible for the export trade. If he sell dear, 
the export-trader will see if he can not buy a hundred thou¬ 
sand tooth-brushes in France instead of England. It is 
nothing to the exporter whether he obtain a profit out of 
French or English tooth-brushes. Again. The manufac¬ 
turer sends a hundred thousand tooth-brushes to a whole¬ 
sale dealer at New York, who supplies the retailers through¬ 
out the United States. But before the New York merchant 
will repeat the order, he will ascertain whether he can buy 
the article cheaper at Birmingham; and one per cent, lower 
21 


482 COMPETITION OF TTNCAPITATED LABOE. 

will decide against Cripplegate. Now, in all these domestic 
labors involving small skill, the question is, whether the 
miserably-paid workers can do any thing more profitable. 
Mr. Mayhew says that some large classes “ do not obtain a 
fair living price for their work, because, as in the case of the 
needle-workers and other domestic manufacturers, their 
livelihood is supposed to be provided for them by the hus¬ 
band or father; and hence the remuneration is viewed 
rather as an aid to the family income than as an absolute 
means of support.” It is not what is “ supposed,” or what 
is “viewed,” that determines the question. It is what 
really is. Such employ may, unhappily, be sought by many 
as “an absolute means of support.” But if there be an al¬ 
most unlimited number who seek it as “ an aid to the family 
income,” there is no possibility of preventing a competition, 
perfectly equal as regards the wages of labor, but wretch¬ 
edly unequal in the application of those wages. 

The miseries that are so frequently resulting from the 
competition of unskilled labor are also results from what we 
will venture to call uncapitaled labor, attempting to unite 
wages with profits. Upon a large scale, the miseries of 
Ireland, which finally collapsed in the terrible famine, were 
produced by labor trenching upon the functions of capital 
without possessing capital. In 184V there were in Ireland 
500,000 acres of land in more than 300,000 tenantries, thus 
supplying the only means of maintenance to 300,000 male 
laborers and their families, but averaging little more than 
an acre and a half to each tenant. There are not more 
than 900,000 laborers and farmers to the 25,000,000 culti¬ 
vated acres in England and Wales—about one laborer to 
thirty-eight acres, and about one farmer capitalist to every 
hundred and ten acres. Nor is the effect of uncapitaled and 
unskilled labor—for uncapitaled labor is for the most part 
unskilled—less remarkable in manufactures than in agricul- 


COMPETITION OF UNCAPITALED LABOR. 483 

ture. Many are familiar with the minute details of low 
wages and suffering—of the oppressions attributed to mas¬ 
ters and middle men—which are contained in a series of 
papers by Mr. Henry Mayhew, published in “ The Morning 
Chronicle ” in 1849-50, under the title of “London Labor, 
and London Poor.” Nothing could be more laudable than 
the general object of these papers, which, in the preface to 
a collected edition of a portion of them, was “ to give the 
rich a more intimate knowledge of the sufferings, and the 
frequent heroism imder these sufferings, of the poor ;” and 
to cause those “ of whom much is expected, to bestir them¬ 
selves to improve their condition.” But, at the same time, 
it would be difficult to say how the condition of particular 
classes of these sufferers was to be' improved, except by 
such general efforts as would raise up the whole body of 
the people in knowledge and virtue, and by directing the 
labors of those who, without skill or capital, were strug¬ 
gling against skill and capital, into courses of industry more 
consonant with the great modes of productiveness all around 
them. One example may illustrate our meaning—that of 
“ the garret-masters of the cabinet-trade.” The writer we 
have mentioned says that wages in London had fallen 400 
per cent, in that trade, between 1831 and 1850; but he also 
says that the trade was “ depressed by the increase of small 
masters—that is to say, by a class of workmen possessed of 
just sufficient capital to buy their own materials, and to 
support themselves while making them up.” Taking the 
whole rate of wages—the payment to the unskilled as well 
as the skilled workmen—it would be difficult not to believe 
that the average reduction was quite as great as repre¬ 
sented. A cabinet-maker tells this tale: 

“ One of the inducements,” he said, “ for men to take to 
making up for themselves is to get a living when thrown 
out of work until they can hear of something better. If 


484 


COMPETITION OF UN CAPITATED LABOE. 


they could get into regular journey work there a’n’t one 
man as would n’t prefer it—it would pay them a deal better. 
Another of the reasons for the men turning small masters is 
the little capital that it requires for them to start them¬ 
selves. If a man has got his tools he can begin as a master- 
man with a couple of shillings. If he goes in for making 
large tables, then from 305. to 355. will do him, and it’s the 
small bit of money it takes to start with in our line that 
brings many into the trade who would n’t be there if more 
tin was wanted to begin upon. Many works for themselves, 
because nobody else won’t employ them, their work is so 
bad. Many weavers has took to our business of late. 
That’s quite common now—their own’s so bad; and some 
that used to hawk hearthstones about is turned table- 
makers.” Whether the mode in which this workman ex¬ 
presses himself correctly indicates, or not, the amount of 
his education, it is quite certain that he had got to the root 
of the evil of which he complains. 

The competition that is only limited by the capacity of 
endurance between the unskilled workman and the uncapi- 
taled workman—each striving against the other, and striv¬ 
ing in vain against capital and skill—has been going on for 
centuries in the distribution of commodities. The retailer 
with small capital has always had to carry on an unequal 
contest with the retailer with large capital. In our time, 
many small shops are swallowed up in magnificent ware¬ 
houses, in which every article of dress especially can be pur¬ 
chased under one roof—from a penny yard of ribbon to a 
five hundred-dollar shawl. In splendor these bazaars, with 
one proprietor, rival the oriental with many competitors. But 
their distinguishing characteristic is the far-seeing organiza¬ 
tion, by which the capital is turned over with unexampled 
rapidity, and no unsaleable stock is kept on hand'. It is 
easy to understand that the larger profits of the small re- 


ITINERANT TRADERS. 


485 


tailer have very little chance of accumulation against the 
smaller profits of the large retailer. 

But this contest of small capital against large was form¬ 
erly carried on in the struggle of the itinerant traders 
against the shopkeepers. It is now carried on in a struggle 
among themselves. The census returns of London show 
seven thousand costermongers, hucksters, and general- 
dealers. Mr. Mayhew says there are ten thousand in 
London. 

The costermonger is a traveling shopkeeper. We en¬ 
counter him not in the great business thoroughfares; in the 
neighborhood of the great markets and well-stored shops 
he travels not. But his voice is heard in some silent streets 
stretching into the suburbs; and there his donkey-cart 
stands at the door, as the dingy servant-maid cheapens a lot 
of vegetables. He has monopolized all the trades that were 
anciently represented by such “ London cries” as “ Buy my 
artichokes , mistress ;” “ Ripe cucumbers ;” “ White onions , 
white St. Thomas ' 1 onions ;” “ White radish ;” “ Ripe 
young beans;” “Any baking pears;” “ Ripe speragas.” 
He woidd be indignant to encounter such petty chapmen 
interfering with his wholesale operations. Mr. Mayhew 
says that “ the regular or thoroughbred costermongers re¬ 
pudiate the numerous persons who only sell nuts or oranges 
in the streets.” Ho doubt they rail against these inferior 
competitors, as the city shopkeepers of the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries railed against itinerant traders of 
every denomination. In the days of Elizabeth, they declare 
by act of common council, that in ancient times the open 
streets and lanes of the city have been used, and ought to 
be used, as the common highway only, and not for huck¬ 
sters, pedlers, and hagglers, to stand and sit to sell their 
wares in, and to pass from street to street hawking and 
offering their wares. In the seventh year of Charles I., the 


486 


ITINERANT TRADERS. 


same authorities denounce the oyster-wives, herb-wives, 
tripe-wives, and the like, as “unruly people;” and they 
charge them, somewhat unjustly as it must appear, with 
“ framing to themselves a way whereby to live a more easy 
life than by labor.” 

“How busy is the man the world calls idle!” 

The evil, as the citizens term it, seems to have increased; for 
in 1694 the common council of London threatened the ped¬ 
dlers and petty chapmen with the terrors of the laws against 
rogues and sturdy beggars, the least penalty being whip¬ 
ping, whether for male or female. The reason for this ter¬ 
rible denunciation is very candidly put: the citizens and 
shopkeepers are greatly hindered and prejudiced in their 
trades by the hawkers and peddlers. Such denunciations as 
these had little share in putting down the itinerant traders. 
They continued to flourish, because society required them; 
and they vanished from our view when society required 
them no longer. In the middle of the last century they 
were fairly established as rivals to the shopkeepers. Dr. 
Johnson, than whom no man knew London better, thus 
writes in the “Adventurer:” “The attention of a new¬ 
comer is generally first struck by the multiplicity of cries 
that stun him in the streets, and the variety of merchandise 
and manufactures which the shopkeepers expose on every 
hand.” The shopkeepers have now ruined the itinerants— 
not by putting them down by fiery penalties, but by the 
competition among themselves to have every article at 
hand, for every man’s use, which shall be better and cheaper 
than the wares of the itinerant. 

A curious parallel might be carried out between the 
itinerant occupations which the progress of society has 
imperfectly suspended, and those which even the most 
advanced civilization is compelled to retain. For example 


ITINERANT TRADERS. 


487 


—the water-carrier is gone. But the cry of “MilJc” or the 
rattle of the milk-cart, will never cease to be heard in our 
streets. There can be no reservoirs of milk, no pipes 
through which it flows into the houses. The more exten¬ 
sive the great capital becomes, the more active must be the 
individual exertion to carry about this article of food. The 
old London cry was, “Any milk here and it was some¬ 
times mingled with the sound of “ Fresh cheese and cream /” 
and it then passed into “Milk, maids, below /” and it was 
then shortened into “ Milk below /” and was finally cor¬ 
rupted into “ Mio ,” which some wag interpreted into mi-eau 
— demi-eau —half-water. But it must still be cried, what¬ 
ever be the cry. The supply of milk to New York or 
London is perhaps one of the most beautiful combinations 
of industry we have. The days are long past since green 
pastures were to be found within the city’s limits. Slowly, 
but surely, does the baked clay stride over the clover and 
the buttercup ; and yet every family in New York may be 
supplied with milk by eight o’clock every morning at their 
own doors. Where do the cows abide ? They are con¬ 
gregated in wondrous masses in the suburbs; and though 
in spring-time they may, perchance, go out to pasture in 
the fields and there crop the tender blade, 

“ When proud pied April, dressed in all his trim, 

Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,” 

yet for the rest of the year the coarse grass is carted to 
their stalls, or they devour what the breweries and distil¬ 
leries can not extract from the grain harvest. Long before 
“ the unfolding star wakes up the shepherd” are the New 
York cows milked ; and the great wholesale venders of the 
commodity bear it in carts to every part of the town, and 
distribute it to hundreds of itinerants, who are waiting like 
the water-carriers at the old conduits. But the wholesale 


488 


ITINERANT TRADERS. 


venders have ceased to depend upon the suburban cows. 
The rail-ways bring milk in enormous cans to every station. 
The suburb has extended, practically, to a circle of fifty 
miles instead of five. It is evident that a perishable com¬ 
modity, which every one requires at a given hour, must be 
rapidly distributed. The distribution has lost its romance. 
Misson, in his “ Travels in England,” published at the begin¬ 
ning of the last century, tells us of the May-games of “ the 
pretty young English country girls that serve the town 
with milk.” Alas! the May-games, and pretty young 
country girls have both departed, and a milkwoman has 
become a very unpoetical personage. There are few, in¬ 
deed, of milkwomen who remain. The cry of “ Water- 
cresses” used to be heard in London from some barefoot 
nymph of the brook, who at sunrise had dipped her feet 
into the bubbling runnel, to carry the green luxury to the 
citizens’ breakfast-tables. Water-cresses are now grown 
like cabbages in gardens. 

The history of “ cries” is a history of social changes. 
The working trades, as well as the venders of things that 
can be bought in every street, are now banished from our 
thoroughfares. “ Old chairs to mend ” still salutes us in 
some retired suburb; and we still see the knife-grinder’s 
wheel; but who vociferates “Any work for John Cooperf” 
or “ A brass pot or an iron pot to mend f” The trades are 
gone to those who pay scot and lot. 

There are some occupations of the streets, however, 
which remain essentially the same, though the form be 
somewhat varied. The sellers of food are of course among 
these. 

If we lament over the general decay of the intinerant 
traders—their uncertain gains, their privations from con¬ 
stant exposure, their want of home comforts, their tempta¬ 
tion to drive their children into the streets to make more 


ITINERANT TRADERS. 


489 


sales—we lament over what is an inevitable consequence of 
the general progress of society. Can we correct these evils 
by saying that the profits of the itinerant traders ought to 
be raised ? Their low condition is a necessary consequence 
of their carrying on a system of industry which is at var¬ 
iance with the general system of civilization. They may 
have their uses in districts with a scattered population, be¬ 
cause they bring articles of consumption to the door of the 
consumer. But in densely populated districts they must 
inevitably be superseded by the shopkeepers. They carry 
on their industiy by a series of individual efforts, which are 
interfered with by numerous chances and accidents. We 
are told that the class is extending yearly in England. But 
it can not extend profitably. In many cases it assumes only 
another form of mendicity. It is a precarious occupation. 
It can count upon no regular returns. Its gains, such as 
they are, are like all other uncertain gains—the impulse to 
occasional profligacy in connection with habitual misery. 
The costermongers of London, according to Mr. Mayhew, 
are drunkards and gamblers, living without religion or the 
family ties. Their children are wholly uneducated. These 
are brought up to assist very early in obtaining their pre¬ 
carious living, and they cleave to a wandering in place of a 
settled life. Dissociated thus from all regular industry, 
they become the outcasts of the people, and go on swelling 
the number of those who, in France, are called “ the dan¬ 
gerous classes.” All classes are dangerous in whom there 
is none of that self-respect which goes along with domestic 
comfort—with sobriety, with cleanliness, with a taste for 
some pursuit that has a tincture of the intellectual. How 
is such a class to be dealt with ? The adult are almost past 
hope ; the young, taken early enough, may be trained into 
something better. But the very last thing that society has 
to do is to encourage, by any forced and unnatural process, 

21 * 


490 CONTRAST OF ORGANIZED INDUSTRY. 

the accession of numbers to the body, always deriving new 
competitors from the unfortunate and the idle who have 
fallen out of regular occupation. 

In striking contrast to the various forms of unskilled 
labor and irregular trading which we have noticed, may 
be mentioned an industry which in London has a very per¬ 
fect organization. In a single district there are sixteen 
hundred watchmakers. These are not the artisans whom 
we see as we pass along the streets of the metropolis, and 
of the country towns, sitting in front of the shop-window 
diligently repairing or putting together the works of a 
watch, by the light of day or of a brilliant lamp, each with 
a magnifying glass pressed under his eyebrow. Nor are 
they the workers in metal who manufacture the movements 
—that is, the wheels—of a watch. The London watch¬ 
makers, thus closely packed in a district which is small 
compared with the whole area of the metropolis, are those 
who put the movements together, and supply all the deli¬ 
cate parts of the mechanism, such as the spring and the 
escapement. They provide also the case and the dial-plate. 
The degree of the skilled labor employed in these several 
branches necessarily varies, according to the quality of the 
instrument to be produced, from the ordinary metal watch 
to the most luxurious repeater. With some exceptions, the 
artisans do not work in large factories. They are subdi¬ 
vided according to their respective qualities, among small 
establishments, where a master has several men receiving 
wages for performing one particular branch of work; or 
the artisan himself, in his own home, may be an escape¬ 
ment-maker, a spring-maker, a fusee-maker, a maker of 
hands, an enameller, an engine-turner, a jewelled pivot-hole 
maker. All this beautiful subdivision of employments has 
been found necessary for the perfection and the cheapness 
of watches. The capitalist, who is essentially the watch 


ORGANIZED INDUSTRY. 


491 


manufacturer, organizes all these departments of industry. 
English watches, by this economical system of production, 
have kept their place against the competition of foreign 
watches; of which were imported, in 1853, into Great 
Britain, fifty-four thousand. The skilled workmen, in all 
the various subdivisions of the manufacture, are well paid, 
and take their due rank among the great and increasing 
body of intelligent mechanics. 

Within the last few years American clocks have been ex¬ 
tensively sold in England. People would once have thought 
that the business of clockmaking in England would be at 
an end, if it had been predicted that in 1853 she would 
import, as she did, a hundred and forty thousand clocks. 
The goodness and cheapness of American clocks have car¬ 
ried a clock into many a house, that without them would 
have been deficient of this instrument for keeping all indus¬ 
try in accordance with the extraordinary punctuality which 
has been forced upon us as an indispensable quality. We owe 
the general exercise of this virtue to the post and the rail¬ 
roads. No one needs now to be told, as our grandfathers 
were somewhat roughly told by the inscription often carved 
on a sun-dial, “ Be gone about thy business.” The Ameri¬ 
can clocks are produced by factory-labor. In Connecticut 
two hundred and fifty men are employed in one estab¬ 
lishment, in making six hundred clocks a-day, the price 
varying from one dollar to ten, and the average price 
being three dollars. Each clock passes through sixty dif¬ 
ferent hands; but in every stage the most scientific ap¬ 
plications of machinery chiefly produce the excellence and 
the cheapness. 

Between the factory-labor required to produce a Con¬ 
necticut clock, which labor affords ample wages to every 
laborer employed, and ample security to the capitalist that 
he will not establish expensive machinery, and pay constant 


492 


COMMUNISM. 


wages, without profit—between this factory-labor, and the 
“garret-labor” which produces a rickety table, with bad 
materials and imperfect tools, at the lowest rate of profit to 
the workman, the difference really consists in the applica¬ 
tion or non-application of capital. The theorist then steps 
in at this stage of the evidence, and says that the garret- 
laborer ought to be provided with capital. His theory 
resolves itself into what is called Communism; and it seeks 
to be maintained by exhibiting the aggregate evils of Com¬ 
petition. The theorist does not deny that competition has 
produced an immense development of wealth; but he af¬ 
firms that the result of the struggle has been to fill the 
hands that are already too full, and to take away from the 
hands that are already nearly empty. He maintains that 
the laboring classes have been more and more declining 
with every increase of the general riches; and that, at 
every step in which industry advances, the proportion of 
the wretched to the great mass of the population as cer¬ 
tainly increases. We shall not attempt to reply to these 
declamations by any counter declamation. We point to 
the great body of facts contained in this volume; and upon 
them rests our unqualified assertion that the doctrines of 
Communism are wholly untrue, and are opposed to the 
whole body of evidence that enables us to judge of the 
average condition of the people, past and present. 

To remedy the evils which it alleges to exist, Communism 
proposes associations working upon a common capital, and 
dividing the produce of all the labor of the community. 
To make a whole country labor in this way, by a confisca¬ 
tion of all the capital of the country, presents, necessarily, 
great difficulties; and therefore there must be smaller com¬ 
munities in particular localities. But these communities 
must produce every thing within themselves, or they must 
deal with other communities. There would be competition 


STATE ORGANIZATION OF LABOR. 


493 


in these communistic dealings between one community and 
another. Even if the whole world were to become com¬ 
munistic, there would be competition between one nation 
and another nation. 

The main objection to the theory of Communism (the ob¬ 
jections to its application are obvious enough) is that, in 
proposing to have a common fund for all labor, it wars 
against the natural principle of individuality, and destroys 
the efficiency of production, by confounding the distinctions 
between the various degrees of skill and industry. If it 
give higher rewards to skilled labor than to unskilled, it 
does exactly what is done in the present state of society. 
If the unskilled and idle were the larger number under 
a system of Communism, they would soon degrade the 
skilled and the industrious to their own level. If they 
were the less powerful number, the skilled and the in¬ 
dustrious would soon bring back the law of competition, 
and drive the unskilled and idle to the minimum point of 
subsistence. 

But Communism, to meet such difficulties, sets up a sys¬ 
tem of expedients. It invokes the aid of the State as a 
regulating power; and, having maintained that the State 
is bound to find employ for every one willing to labor, 
however inefficiently, and to supply the necessary fund's for 
all labor, it makes the State the great healer of differences, 
even as Mr. Sergeant Thorpe held that the State could pro¬ 
vide “ a salve for every sore.” Let us take one example of 
the mode in which Communism proposes to discharge its 
functions. 

There is a little treatise, in Italian, by Count Pecchio, on 
the Application of the General Laws of Production to Lite¬ 
rary and Scientific Publications. It considers that literary 
labor is governed by the same laws as any other labor; 
that the capital of a man of letters consists in his stores of 


494 


SOCIAL PUBLISHING ESTABLISHM ENT. 


acquired knowledge; that, as there is no equality in literary 
talent—as there is a great range of talent between the most 
skilled and the least skilled literary laborer—so the rewards 
of literary industry are proportionally unequal; that the 
wages of literary labor depend upon the usual conditions 
of demand and supply; that, under a system of competition 
in an open market, the literary laborer is more sure of his 
reward, however large may be the number of laborers, 
than in the old days of patronage for the few; that State 
encouragement is not necessary to the establishment of a 
high and enduring literature; that when literary industry 
is free—when it is neither fostered by bounties, nor cramped 
and annihilated by prohibitions—when there is neither pat¬ 
ronage nor censorship—it is in the most favorable condition 
for its prosperous development. These principles, applied 
to literary production, are in many respects applicable to 
all production. 

Every one has heard of the “ Organization of Labor,” 
which some philosophers of France attempted to transfer 
from the theories of the closet to the experiments of the 
workshop, in 1848. It is not our object, as we have said, 
to discuss whether a vast system of national co-operation 
for universal production be a wise thing or a practical thing. 
Let us state only a small part of that system, as exhib¬ 
ited in the “ Organisation du Travail,” by Monsieur Louis 
Blanc, the second part of which is devoted to the question 
of literary property. 

All the beneficial results contemplated by the organizers 
of a universal social industry are to be obtained for literary 
industry, according to this system, by the foundation of a 
Social Publishing Establishment, which is thus described: 
It would be a literary manufacture belonging to the State 
without being subject to the State. This institution would 
govern itself, and divide among its members the profits 


SOCIAL PUBLISHING ESTABLISHMENT. 495 

obtained by the common labor. According to its original 
laws, which would be laid down by the State, the Social 
Publishing Establishment would not have to purchase any 
author’s right in his works. The price of books would be 
determined by the State, with a view to the utmost possible 
cheapness; all the expenses of the impression would be at 
the charge of the Social Establishment. A committee of 
enlightened men, chosen and remunerated by the Social 
Establishment, would receive the works. The writers whose 
works the Social Establishment would publish would ac¬ 
quire, in exchange for their rights as authors, which they 
would wholly resign, the right of exclusively competing 
for national recompenses. There would be, in the annual 
national budget, a fund provided for such recompense, for 
authors in every sphere of thought. Every time the first 
work of an author was deemed worthy of a national recom¬ 
pense, a premium would also be given to the Social Estab¬ 
lishment, that it might be indemnified for the possible loss 
which it had sustained in giving its support to youthful 
talent. Every year the representatives of the people would 
name for every branch of intellectual exertion, a citizen 
who would examine the works issuing from the social 
presses. He would have a whole year to examine them 
thoroughly; to read all the criticisms upon them ; to study 
the influence which they had produced upon society; to 
interrogate public opinion through its organs, and not 
judge by the blind multitude of buyers; and, finally, to 
prepare a report. The national rewards would then be 
distributed in the most solemn manner. 

We thus state briefly, but. fairly, the plan which is to put 
an end to that literary competition which it is proclaimed 
u commences in dishonor and ends in miserywhich is to 
destroy bad books and encourage good; which, it is af¬ 
firmed, is “ no longer to make the publication of good books 


496 


PRACTICAL CO-OPERATION. 


depend upon the speculators, who have rarely any other 
intelligence than a commercial aptitude, but upon compe¬ 
tent men, whom it interests in the success of every useful 
and commendable work.” We truly believe that this 
would be a practicable plan—provided two conditions were 
secured, which at present seem to be left out of the account. 
They are simply these—that there should be unlimited 
funds at hand for the purpose of rewarding authors, and 
unlimited wisdom and honesty in their administrators. But 
unhappily, as we understand it, the entire plan is a confusion 
of principle—rejecting much that is valuable in competi¬ 
tion, and adopting much that is positively harmful in co¬ 
operation. Those authors who are profiting largely by the 
competitive system are to give up their profits to the com¬ 
mon fund, which is to support those who could not make 
profits under that system. This is the social workshop 
notion of equality. But in the literary workshop the State 
is to step in and restore the ancient condition of inequality, 
by exclusive rewards to the most deserving of the competi¬ 
tors. It is a practical satire upon the whole scheme of a 
new social arrangement. 

With a sincere disposition to speak favorably of every 
plan for promoting the welfare of our fellow-creatures, which 
is not founded upon a destruction of the security of prop¬ 
erty, we have no desire to maintain that all the denouncers 
of competition are weak and dangerous advisers of the 
great body of working people. We believe that the entire 
system of any proposed co-operation that would set aside 
competition is a delusion—out of which, indeed, some small 
good might be slowly and painfully evoked, but which can 
never mainly affect the great workmgs of individual indus¬ 
try, while its futile attempts may relax the springs of all just 
and honest action. But we do not in any degree seek to 
oppose any practical form of co-operation that is built upon 


DUTIES OF THE EMPLOYED. 


497 


the natural and inevitable workings of capital, tending to 
produce in a manner not less favorable for production than 
a system entirely competitive. 

However earnest and thinking men may differ as to the 
degree in which improvement, moral, intellectual, and 
physical, has reached the masses of our population, it is a 
prayer in which all good men unite, that the condition of 
the working-classes may be more and more improved— 
that their outward circumstances may be made better and 
better. But those who labor the steadiest, and the most 
zealously, in the endeavor to realize this hope, feel that the 
day of this amelioration is far removed by any contentions 
between the employed and the employers, which impede 
production and diminish the funds for the support of labor. 
They know that every improvement in the arts of life im¬ 
proves also the condition of the humblest working man in 
the land; and they also know that every successive im¬ 
provement has a tendency to lessen the inequality in the 
distribution of wealth. But, if the condition of the working 
men of this country is to be permanently improved—if they 
are to obtain a full share of the blessings which science and 
industry confer upon mankind—they must win those bless¬ 
ings by their own moral elevation. They can not snatch 
them by violence ; they can not accomplish them suddenly 
by clamor; they can not overthrow a thousand opposing 
circumstances to a great and rapid rise of wages; they 
must win them by peaceful and steady exertion. When 
the working men of this country shall feel, as the larger 
portion of them already feel, that knowledge is power, they 
will next set about to see how that power shall be exercised. 
The first tyranny which that power must hold in check is 
the tyranny of evil habits—those habits which, looking only 
to the present hour, at one time plunge some into all the 
thoughtless extravagance which belongs to a state of high 


498 


DUTIES OF EMPLOYERS. 


wages— a t another, throw them prostrate before their em¬ 
ployers, in all the misery and degradation which accompany 
a state of low wages, without a provision for that state. It 
is for them, and for them alone, to equalize the two condi¬ 
tions. The changes of trade, in a highly commercial country 
like this, must be incessant. It is for the workmen them¬ 
selves to put a “ governor ” on the commercial machine, as 
far as they are concerned; in a season of prosperity to ac¬ 
cumulate the power of capital—in a season of adversity to 
use effectively, because temperately, that power which they 
have won for themselves. 

But there are other duties to be performed, in another 
direction—the duties of employers. That duty does not 
consist in making laborers partners, if the employers have 
no inclination thereto. It does not consist in attempting 
any private benevolence, by raising the rate of wages paid 
by their own firms beyond the average rate, which attempt 
would be ruinous to both classes interested. But it does 
consist in exercising the means within their power to benefit 
the condition of all in their employ, by cultivating every 
sympathy with them that may be the real expression of a 
community of interests. Such sympathy is manifested when 
large firms devote a considerable portion of their profits to 
the education of the young persons employed in their facto¬ 
ries ; when they cultivate the intelligent pleasures of their 
adult work-people; when, in a word, they make the factory 
system a beautiful instrument for raising the whole body of 
their laborers into a real equality, in all the moral and intel¬ 
lectual conditions of our nature, with themselves, the cap¬ 
tains of industry. When these duties are attended to, there 
may be common misfortunes; demand may fall off; the ma¬ 
chinery, whether of steam or of mind, may be imperfectly 
in action; the season of adversity may bring discomfort. 
But it will not bring animosity. There may be deep anxie- 


CONCLUSION. 


499 


ties on one part, and severe privations on the other, hut 
there will not be hatred and jealousies—the cold neglect, 
and the grim despair. 

“¥e know the arduous strife, the eternal laws, 

To which the triumph of all good is given ; 

High sacrifice, and labor without pause, 

Even to the death.” 

In concluding this little volume, the object of which has 
been to illustrate the productive forces of modern so¬ 
ciety, and the results which have been attained by the com¬ 
bined effects of labor, capital, and skill, we would direct 
the attention of our readers to the following extract from 
an address recently delivered before a Mechanics’ Associa¬ 
tion by Prof. Joseph Henry, of the Smithsonian Institution; 
in which the- industrial progress of our race, past and pres¬ 
ent, is briefly sketched, and the responsibilities which de¬ 
volve upon each member of society as participators of the 
benefits of such progress, are pointed out: 

“ Every age of the world, since the commencement of the 
historic period, has been characterized by some leading or 
dominant idea; and each age has bequeathed something of 
value to, or made some biding impression on, that which 
followed. We doubt whether any great and important 
truth has ever been lost; and, though some may have ap¬ 
parently lain dormant for a time, yet they have continually 
produced results. Some arts have undoubtedly fallen into 
disuse, because they are no longer required, or because 
they have been superseded by more perfect processes. We, 
however, think it can be clearly established that modern 
science is capable of reproducing every invention of ancient 
art, and at an indefinite economy of human time and human 
labor. 

“ I know we are frequently referred to the immense masses 


500 


CONCLUSION. 


of stone .transported and wrought by ancient art, which are 
found among the ruins of Baalbec and Thebes, and are 
frequently told that the management of these would far 
transcend the skill and power of modern engineers. Such 
assertions are, however, rather intended to convey an idea 
of the impression produced upon the beholder of these ven¬ 
erable ruins than a declaration of absolute truth. As a suffi¬ 
cient illustration of this, we may mention the fact that, in 
New York, large buildings of brick and stone are moved 
from place to place, while the inhabitants remain undis¬ 
turbed within. Or we may point to the Menai Strait tubular 
bridge, a structure of cast-iron many hundred tons in 
weight, suspended in mid-air over a chasm several hundred 
feet deep. 

“ I have said that no arts of importance have been lost, 
but perhaps this assertion is rather too general. There is 
one which may be considered an exception—I allude to the 
ancient art possessed by the few of enslaving and brutaliz¬ 
ing the many; the art by which a single individual, invested 
with the magic of kingly power, was enabled to compel 
thousands of his subjects, through the course of a long 
reign, like beasts of burden, to haul materials and heap up 
piles of huge stones, which might transmit to posterity the 
fact that a worm like himself had lived and died. The 
pyramids of Egypt, venerable as they are with the age of 
accumulated centuries, are melancholy monuments of human 
degradation, of human vanity, and cruelty. 

“ There are certain processes of thought which require 
individual exertion rather than combined effort for their 
development. There are certain arts in which perfection 
depends on the genius and skill of the individual rather 
than on the condition of the race. Such are oratory, poetry, 
painting, and sculpture. In these if an individual excel, he 
excels for himself—his skill is not transferable, though his 


CONCLUSION. 


501 


example may serve to awaken the same taste in many of 
his cotemporaries and successors. For the development 
of these arts, the individualism of the Greeks was well 
adapted, and they were accordingly advanced by this people 
almost, if not quite, to their maximum state of perfection. 
TVe now resort to classic ages for moral sentiments, for 
illustrations of the true, and for the perfection of the beau¬ 
tiful, but not for a knowledge of the'laws of nature, or 
even for the philosophy of art. The ancients had no ac¬ 
quaintance with science, properly so called. In these re¬ 
marks I seek not to disparage the past, nor to unduly exalt 
the present. The character of the world, as it now exhibits 
itself in its mental and moral development, its knowledge 
of nature, and its skill in arts, is the result of all the im¬ 
pressions made on it from the earliest dawn of civilization 
to our own day. . In the case of an individual, every im¬ 
pression to which his mind is subjected, either from external 
nature or his own mental operations, or those of his fellow- 
men, produces an indelible effect, modifying all the previous 
impressions, and co-operating with them to form the pecul¬ 
iarities of his mental and moral character. An analogous 
effect is produced on the whole human family during the 
ages of its existence. 

“ The results of the labors of the ancients in the develop¬ 
ment of the beautiful have not been lost, and will ever 
remain impressed upon the human mind. The marble of 
the Parthenon may be reduced to atoms, and these scat¬ 
tered to the winds of heaven, but its form is imperishable. 
The moderns do not attempt to excel the examples of the 
fine arts bequeathed to them by the ancients, because it 
would be idle to attempt to add to that which is perfect, 
to gild refined gold, or paint the lily. But they have in¬ 
vented tools and processes by which copies of these precious 
relics may be multiplied indefinitely, with unerring precis- 


502 


CONCLUSION. 


ion, by the application, not of manual skill, but of physical 
labor. 

“ The union of the industrial with the fine arts vastly en¬ 
larges the influence of the latter, and enables them to be 
appreciated, and genius to be admired by millions whom 
their single productions would never reach. There are at 
this time more minds enthusiastically alive to the beauty 
of ancient art than there were in the days of Phidias. 
Nothing, then, of importance has been here lost; but, on 
the contrary, much has been gained. 

“We have received from the past a rich treasure of 
knowledge, gathered under difficulties and danger, and 
elaborated with the thought and the experience of years. 
Our great object should be to purify this knowledge from 
error, to reduce it to its essential and simple elements, 
and to transmit it with the greatest amount of new truth 
to our successors. We should recollect that accumulated 
knowledge, like accumulated capital, increases at compound 
interest, and knowledge thus accelerates its own advance. 
Each generation is therefore bound to add much more 
largely to the common stock than that which immediately 
•preceded it. 

“ By these remarks we do not wish to draw upon our¬ 
selves the imputation of advocating the perfectibility of 
the human race. That there will be, however, continued 
progress, we can not doubt; but this will not be the result 
of a blind law of necessity, but of a providential design 
through individual agency. It is, therefore, the high 
privilege, as well as the sacred duty, of every one of us 
to make the improvement of ourselves and our fellow- 
men the great object of life, and to endeavor, to the ut¬ 
most of our ability, to leave the world at least a little 
wiser and better than we found it. But, in order to suc¬ 
cess in this effort, we must cultivate other provinces of 


CONCLUSION. 


503 


thought than merely those which belong exclusively to 
the development of our knowledge of the external world. 
There are other regions of a higher and holier nature, 
without the cultivation of which no true progress can be 
made.” 








IMPORTANT 


LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC WORKS 

PUBLISHED BY 

GOULD AND LINCOLN, 

59 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON, 


ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY; or, Year Book of Facts 

in Science and Art, exhibiting the most important Discoveries and Improvements in 
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Zoology, Botany, Mineralogy, Geology, Geography, Antiquities, etc. ; together with a list 
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David A Wells, A. M. 12mo, cloth, 1,25 

This work, commenced in the year 1850, and issued on the first of March annually, contains all 
important facts discovered or announced during the year. Each volume is distinct in itself, and con¬ 
tains entirely new matter , with a fine portrait of some distinguished scientific man. As it is not in¬ 
tended exclusively for scientific men, hut to meet the wants of the general reader, it has been the aim 
of the editor that the articles should be brief, and intelligible to all. The editor has received the appro¬ 
bation, counsel, and personal contributions of the prominent scientific men throughout the country. 

THE FOOTPRINTS OF THE CREATOR; or, The Asterolepis of 

Stromness. With numerous Illustrations. By Hugh Miller, author of “ The Old Red 
Sandstone,” &c. From the third London Edition. With a Memoir of the Author, by 
Louis Agassiz. 12mo, cloth, 1,00. 

Dr. Buckland, at a meeting of the British Association, said he had never been so much aston¬ 
ished in his life, by the powers of any man, as he had been by the geological descriptions of Mr. Miller. 
That wonderful man described these objects with a facility which made him ashamed of the com¬ 
parative meagreness and poverty of his own descriptions in the “ Bridgewater Treatise,” which had 
cost him hours and days of labor. He would give his left hand to possess such powers of description 
as this man : and if it pleased Providence to spare his useful life, he, if any one, would certainly ren¬ 
der science attractive and popular, and do equal service to theology and geology. 

Mr. Miller’s style is remarkably pleasing; his mode of popularizing geological knowledge unsur¬ 
passed, perhaps unequalled; and the deep reverence for divine revelation pervading all adds inter, 
est and value to the volume. — N. T. Com. Advertiser. 

The publishers have again covered themselves with honor, by giving to the American public, with 
the author’s permission, an elegant reprint of a foreign work of science. We earnestly bespeak fo; 
this work a wide and free circulation among all who love science much and religion more. — Puri¬ 
tan Recorder. 

THE OLD RED SANDSTONE; or. New Walks in an Old Field. By 

Hugh Miller. Illustrated with Plates and Geological Sections. 12mo, cloth, 1,00. 

Mr. Miller’s exceedingly interesting book on this formation is just the sort of work to render any 
subject popular. It is written in a remarkably pleasing style, and contains a wonderful amount of 
information. — Westminster Review. 

It is, withal, one of the most beautiful specimens of English composition to be found, conveying 
Information on a most difficult and profound science, in a style at once novel, pleasing, and elegant 
It contains the results of twenty years’ close observation and experiment, resulting in an accumulation 
of facts which not only dissipate some dark and knotty old theories with regard to ancient formations, 
but establish the great truths of geology in more perfect and harmonious consistency with the greut 
truths of revelation, — Albany Spectator. * A 



VALUABLE SCIENTIFIC WORKS 


A TREATISE ON THE COMPARATIVE ANATOMY OF THE 

Animal Kingdom. By Profs. C. Th. Von Siebold and H. Stannius. Translated 
from the German, with Notes, Additions, &c., By Waldo J. Burnett, M. D., Boston. 
Two volumes, octavo, cloth. 

This is unquestionably the best and most complete work of its class yet published; and its appear¬ 
ance in an English dress, with the corrections, improvements, additions, etc., of the American Editor, 
will no doubt be welcomed by the men of science in this country and in Europe, from whence or¬ 
ders for supplies of the work have been received. 

THE POETRY OF SCIENCE ; or, the Physical Phenomena of Nature. 

By Robert Hunt, Author of “ Panthea,” “ Researches of Light,” &c. 12mo, cloth, 1,25. 

♦ 

We are heartily glad to see this interesting work republished in America. It is a book that is a 
book. — Scientific American. 

It is one of the most readable, interesting, and instructive works of the kind that we have ever 
seen. — Phil. Christian Observer. 


THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SPECIES: its Typical Forms 

and Primeval Distribution. By Charles Hamilton Smith. With an Introduction, 
containing an Abstract of the Views of Blurnenbach, Prichard, Bachman, Agassiz, and 
other writers of repute. By Samuel Kneeland, Jr., M. D. With elegant Illustra¬ 
tions. 12mo, cloth, 1,25. 

The history of the species is thoroughly considered by Colonel Smith, with regard to its origin, 
typical forms, distribution, filiations, &c. The marks of practical good sense, careful observation, 
and deep research are displayed in every page. An introductory essay of some seventy or eighty 
pages forms a valuable addition to the work. It comprises an abstract of the opinions advocated by 
the mod eminent writers on the subject The statements are made with strict impartiality, and, 
without a comment, left to the judgment of the reader. — Sartain's Magazine. 

This work exhibits great research, as well as an evident taste and talent, on the part of the author, 
for the study of the history of man, upon zoological principles. It is a book of learning, and full of 
interest, and may be regarded as among the comparatively few real contributions to science, that 
serve to redeem, in some measure, the mass of useless stuff under which the press groans. — Chris. 
Witness. 

This book is characterized by more curious and interesting research than any one that has recently 
come under our examination. — Allxiny Journal and Register. 

It contains a learned and thorough treatment of an important subject, always interesting, and of 
late attracting more than usual attention. — Ch. Register. 

The volume before us is one of the best of the publishers’ series of publications, replete with rare 
and valuable information, presented in a style at once clear and entertaining, illustrated in the mest 
copious manner with plates of all the various forms of the human race, tracing with the most minute 
precision analogies and resemblances, and hence origin. The more it is read, the more widely opens 
this field of research before the mind, again and again to be returned to, with fresh zest and satisfac¬ 
tion. It is the result of the researches, collections, and labors of a long and valuable lifetime, present¬ 
ed in the most popular form imaginable. — Albany Spectator. 

LAKE SUPERIOR: its Physical Character, Vegetation, and Animals, 
compared with those of other and similar regions. By L. Agassiz, and Contributions 
from other eminent Scientific Gentlemen. With a Narrative of the Expedition, and 
Illustrations. By J. E. Cabot One volume, octavo, elegantly illustrated. Cloth, 3,50. 

The illustrations, seventeen in number, are in the finest style of the art, by Sonrel; embracing 
lake and landscape scenery, fishes, and other objects of natural history, with an outline map of Lake 
Superior. 

This work is one of the most valuable scientific works thathas appeared in this country. Embody¬ 
ing the researches of our best scientific men relating to a hitherto comparatively unknewp region, 
it will be found to contain a great amount of scientific information. jj 



GUYOT’S WORKS 


THE EARTH AND MAN : Lectures on Comparative Physical 
Geography, in its relation to the History of Mankind. By Prof, Arnold Guyot. 
Translated from the French, by Prof, C. C. Felton, with numerous Illustrations. 
Eighth thousand. 12mo, cloth, 1,25. 

From Prof- Louis Agassiz, of Harvard University, 

It will not only render the study of Geography more attractive, hut actually show it in its true light, 
namely, as the science of the relations which exist between nature and man throughout history; of 
the contrasts observed between the different parts of the globe; of the laws of horizontal and vertical 
forms of the dry land, in its contact with the sea; of climate, &c. It would be highly serviceable, It 
seems to me, for the benefit of schools and teachers, that you should induce Mr. Guyot to write a se¬ 
ries of graduated text books of geography, from the first elements up to a scientific treatise. It would' 
give new life to these studies in this country, and be the best preparation for sound statistical investi-* 
gations. 

From George S. Hillard. Esq., of Boston. 

Professor Gnyot’s Lectures are marked by learning, ability, and taste. His bold and comprehen¬ 
sive generalizations rest upon a careful foundation of facts. The essential value of his statements is 
enhanced by his luminous arrangement, and by a vein of philosophical reflection which gives life and 
dignity to dry details. To teachers of youth it will be especially important. They may learn from it 
how to make Geography, which I recall as the least interesting of studies, one of the most attractive 
and I earnestly commend it to their careful consideration. 

Those who have been accustomed to regard Geography as a merely descriptive branch of learn¬ 
ing, drier than the remainder biscuit after avoyage, will be delighted to find this hitherto unattractive 
pursuit converted into a science, the principles of which are definite and the results conclusive.— 
Forth American Review. 

The grand idea of the work is happily expressed by the aut ior, where he calls it the geographical 
march of history. Faith, science, learning, poetry, taste, in a word, genius, have liberally contributed 
to the production of the work under review. Sometimes we feel as if we were studying a treatise on 
the exact sciences; at others, it strikes the ear like an epic poem. Now it reads like history, and now 
it sounds like prophecy. It will find readers in whatever language it may be published. — Christian 
Examiner. 

The work is one of high merit, exhibiting a wide range of knowledge, great research, and a philo¬ 
sophical spirit of investigation. Its perusal will well repay the most learned in such subjects, and 
give new views to all of man’s relation to the globe he inhabits. — Sillvnan's Journal. 

COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL AND HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY; 

or. the Study of the Earth and its Inhabitants. A series of graduated courses for the use 
of Schools. By Arnold Guyot, author of “ Earth and Man,” etc. 

The series hereby announced will consist of three courses, adapted to the capacity of three different 
ages and periods of study. The first is intended for primary schools and for children of from seven 
to ten years. The second is adapted for higher schools, and for young persons of from ten to fifteen 
years. The third is to be used as a scientific manual in Academies and Colleges. 

Each course will be divided into two parts, one on purely Physical Geography, the other for Eth¬ 
nography, Statistics, Political and Historical Geography. Each part will be illustrated by a colored 
Physical and Political Atlas, prepared expressly for this purpose, delineating, with the greatest care, 
the configuration of the surface, and the other physical phenomena alluded to in the corresponding 
work, the distribution of the races of men, and the political divisions into states, &c., &c. 

The two parts of the first or preparatory course are now in a forward state of preparation, and will 
be issued at an early day. 

GUYOT’S MURAL MAPS; a Series of elegant Colored Maps, projected 
on a large scale, for the Recitation Room, consisting of a Map of the World, North and 
South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, &c., exhibiting the Physical Phenomena of the 
Globe, etc. By Prof. Arnold Guyot. Price, mounted, 10,00 each. 

MAP OF THE WORLD , — Now ready. 

MAP OF NORTH AMERICA, — Now ready. 

MAP OF SOUTH AMERICA, — Nearly ready. 

MAP OF GEOGRAPHICAL ELEMENTS,. — N . w ready. 

Other .Maps of the Scries are in preparation. 


C 



THE PLURALITY OF WORLDS. 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION by Edward Hitchcock, LL.D., President of 

Amherst College. 12mo, cloth. $1.00. 

JSSr" This is a masterly production on a subject of great interest. 

The “Plurality of Worlds” is a work of great ability, and one that cannot fail to arrest the 
attention of the world of science. Its author takes the bold ground of contesting the generally 
adopted belief of the existence of other peopled worlds beside our own earth. A gentleman 
upon whose judgment we place much reliance writes, in regard to it: 

“‘The Plurality of Worlds’ plays the mischief with the grand speculation of Christian and 
other astronomers. It is the most remorseless executioner of beautiful theories I have ever 
stumbled upon, and leaves the grand universe of existence barren as a vast Sahara. The author 
is a stern logician, and some of the processes of argumentation are singularly fine. Many of 
the thoughts are original and very striking, and the whole conception of the volume is as novel 
as the results are unwelcome. I should think the work must attract attention from scientific 
men, from the very bold and well-sustained attempt to set aside entirely the scientific assump¬ 
tions of the age.” — Boston Atlas. 

This work has created a profound sensation in England. It is, in truth, a remarkable book, — 
remarkable both for the boldness of the theory advanced, and for the logical manner in which 
the subject-matter is treated. — Mercantile Journal. 

The new scientific book, Plurality of Worlds, recently published in this city, is awakening an 
unusual degree of interest in the literary and scientific world, not only in this country, but in 
England. The London Literary Gazette, for April, contains an able review, occupying over 
nine columns, from which we make the following extract: “ We venture to say that no scien¬ 
tific man of any reputation will maintain the theory, without mixing up theological with phys¬ 
ical arguments. And it is in regard to the theological and moral aspect of the question, that 
we think the author urges considerations which most believers in the truths of Christianity 
will deem unanswerable.” — Evening Transcript. 

The “ Plurality of Worlds ” has created as great a sensation in the reading world, as did the 
Vestiges of Creation. But this time the religious world is not uc in arms with anathemas on 
its lips. This is a book for it to “lick its ear ” over. It is aimed at the speculations of Fonte- 
nelle, or Dr. Chalmers, respecting the existence of life and spirit in the worlds that roll around 
us, and demonstrating the impossibility of such a thing. — London Cor. of N. Y. Tribune. 

To the theologian, philosopher, and man of science, this is a most intensely interesting work, 
while to the ordinary thinker it will be found possessed of much valuable information. The 
work is evidently the production of a scholar, and of one earnest for the dissemination of truth 
in regard to what he considers, for theologians and scientific men, the greatest question of the 
age. — Albany Transcript. 

The work is learned, eloquent, suggestive of profound reflection, solacing to human pride, and 
even to Christian humility , and points out the great lesson it illustrates, upon the diagram of 
the heavens, in language and tone elevated to the standard of the great theme. — Boston Atlas. 

One of the most extraordinary books of the age. It is an attempt to show that the facts of 
science do not warrant the conclusion to which most scientific minds so readily assent, that 
the planets are inhabited. The anonymous author is a genius, and will set hundreds of critics 
on the hunt to ferret him out! — Star of the West. 

GEOLOGICAL MAP OF THE UNITED STATES AND BRITISH PROV¬ 
INCES OF NORTH AMERICA. With an Explanatory Text, Geological 

Sections, and Plates of the Fossils which characterize the Formations. By 
Jules Marcou. Two volumes. Octavo, cloth. $3.00. 

13®= The Map is elegantly colored, and done up with linen cloth back, and folded in octavo 
form, with thick cloth covers. 

The most complete Geological Map of the United States which has yet appeared. The exe¬ 
cution of this Map is very neat and tasteful, and it is issued in the best style. It is a work 
which all who take an ftrterest in the geology of the United States would wish to possess, and 
we lecommend it as extremely valuable, not only in a geological point of view, but as repre¬ 
senting very fully the coal and copper regions of the country. The explanatory text presents a 
rapid sketch oftne geological constilations of North America, and is rich in facts on the sub¬ 
lets. It is embellished with a number of beautiful plates of the fossils which characterize the 
formations, thus making, with the Map, a very complete, clear, and distinct outline of the geology 
of our country. — Mining Magazine, N. Y. , .... 


THESAURUS OF ENGLISH WORDS AND PHRASES. 

So Classified and Arranged as to Facilitate the Expression of Ideas, and Assist 
in Literary Composition. By Peter Mark Roget, late Secretary of the Royal 
Society, and author of the “ Bridgewater Treatise,” etc. Revised and En- 
larged ; with a List of Foreign Words and Expressions most frequently 
occurring in works of general Literature, Defined in English, by Barnas 
Sears, D.D., Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, assisted by 
several Literary Gentlemen. 12mo, cloth. $1.50. 

JCSr’ A work of great merit, admirably adapted as a text-book for schools ami colleges, and ot 
high importance to every American scholar. Among the numerous commendations received 
from the press, in all directions, the publishers would call attention to the following: 

We are glad to see the Thesaurus of English Words republished in this country. It is a most 
valuable work, giving the results of many years' labor, in an attempt to classify and arrange the 
words of the English tongue, so as to facilitate the practice of composition. The purpose of aa 
ordinary dictionary is to explain the meaning of words, while the object of this Thesaurus is to 
coHate all the words by which any given idea may be expressed. — Putnam's Monthly. 

This volume offers the student of English composition the results of great labor in the form 
of a rich and copious vocabulary. We would commend the work to those who have charge of 
academies and high schools, and to all students. — Christian Observer. 

This is a novel publication, and is the first and only one of the kind ever issued in which 
words and phrases of our language are classified, not according to the sound of their orthog¬ 
raphy, but strictly according to their signification. It will become an invaluable aid in the 
communication of our thoughts, whether spoken or written, and hence, as a means of improve¬ 
ment, we can recommend it as a work of rare and excellent qualities. — Scientific American. 

A work of great utility. It will give a writer the word he wants, when that word is on the 
tip of his,tongue, but altogether beyond his reach. — N. T. Times. 

It is more complete than the English work, which has attained a just celebrity. It is intended 
to supply, with respect to the English language, a desideratum hitherto unsupplied in any 
language, namely, a collection of the words it contains, and of the idiomatic combinations 
peculiar to it, arranged, not in alphabetical order, as they are in a dictionary, but according to 
the ideas which they express. The purpose of a dictionary is simply to explain the meaning 
of words — the word being given, to find its signification, or the idea it is intended to convey. 
The object aimed at here is exactly the converse of this -. the idea being given, to find the word 
or words by which that idea may be most fitly and aptly expressed. For this purp je, the words 
and phrases of the language arc here classed, not according to their sound or their orthography, 
but strictly according to their signification. — New York Evening Mirror. 

An invaluable companion to persons engaged in literary labors. To persons who are not 
familiar with foreign tongues, the catalogue of foreign words and phrases most current in mod¬ 
em literature, which the American editor has appended, will be very useful. — Presbyterian. 

It casts the whole English language into groups of words and terms, arranged in such a man¬ 
ner that the student of English composition, when embarrassed by the poverty of his vocabu¬ 
lary, may supply himself immediately, on consulting it, with the precise term for which he has 
occasion. — New York Evening Post. 

• This is a work not merely of extraordinary, but of peculiar value. We would gladly praise it, 
if anything could add to the consideration held out by the title-page. No one who speaks or 
writes for the public need be urged to study Roget’s Thesaurus. — Star of the West. 

Every writer and speaker ought to possess himself at once of this manual. It is far from 
being a mere dull, dead string of synonymes, but it is enlivened and vivified by the classifying 
and crystallizing power of genuine philosophy. We have put it on our table as a permanent 
fixture, as near our left hand as the Bible is to our right. — Congregationalist. 

This book is one of the most valuable we ever examined. It supplies a want long acknowl¬ 
edged by the best writers, and supplies it completely. — Portland Advertiser. 

One of the most efficient aids to composition that research, industry and scholarship, have 
ever produced. Its object is to supply the writer or speaker with the most felicitous teims 
for expressing an idea that may be vaguely floating on his mind; and, indeed, through the 
peculiar manner of arrangement, Ideas themselves maybe expanded or modified by reference to 
Mr. Itoget’s elucidations. — Albion, N. Y- ^ 


VALUABLE WORK 


CYCLOPAEDIA OF ANECDOTES OF LITERATURE AND THE 

FINE ARTS. Containing a copious and choice selection of Anecdotes of the various 
forms of Literature, of the Arts, of Architecture, Engravings, Music, Poetry, Painting, 
and Sculpture, and of the most celebrated Literary Characters and Artists of different 
Countries and Ages, &c. By Kazlitt Arvine, A. M., Author of “ Cyclopaedia of Moral 
and Religious Anecdotes.” With numerous illustrations. 725 pages octavo, cloth, 3,00. 

This is unquestionably the choicest collection of anecdotes ever published. It contains three thou¬ 
sand and forty Anecdotes, many of them articles of interest, containing reading matter equal to half a 
dozen pages of a common 12mo. volume; and such is the wonderful variety, that it will be found an. 
almost inexhaustible fund of interest for every class of readers. The elaborate classification and in¬ 
dexes must commend it, especially to public speakers, to the various classes of literary and scientific 
men, to artists, mechanics, and others, as a Dictionary, /or reference, in relation to facts on the num¬ 
berless subjects and characters introduced. There are also more than one hundred and fifty fine 
Illustrations. 

We know of no work which in the same space comprises so much valuable information in a form 
to entertaining, and so well adapted to make an indelible impression upon the mind. It must become 
a standard work, and be ranked among the few books which are indispensable to every complete 
library. — A. Y. Chronicle. 

Here is a perfect repository of the most choice and approved specimens of this species of informa¬ 
tion, selected with the greatest care from all sources, ancient and modern. The work is replete with 
such entertainment as is adapted to all grades of readers, the most or least intellectual. — Methodist 
Quarterly Magazine. 

Onb of the most complete things of the kind ever given to the public. There is scarcely a paragraph 
in the whole book which will not interest some one deeply ; for, while men of letters, argument, and 
art cannot afford to do without its immense fund of sound maxims, pungent wit, apt illustrations, and 
brilliant examples, the merchant, mechanic and laborer will find it one of the choicest companions of 
the hours of relaxation. “ Whatever be the mood of one’s mind, and however limited the time for 
reading, in the almost endless variety and great brevity of the articles he can find something to suit 
his feelings, which lie can begin and end at once. It may also be made the very life of the social circle, 
containing pleasant reading for all ages, at all times and seasons. — Buffalo Commercial Advertiser. 

A well spring of entertainment, to be drawn from at any moment, comprising the choicest anecdotes 
of distinguished men, from the remotest period to the present time. — Bangor Whig. 

A magnificent collection of anecdotes touching literature and the fine arts. — Albany Spectator. 

This work, which is the most extensive and comprehensive collection of anecdotes ever published, 
cannot fail to become highly popular. — Salem Gazette. 

A publication of which there is little danger of speaking in too flattering terms ; a perfect Thesaurus 
of rare and curious information, carefully selected and methodically arranged. A jewel of a book to 
lie on one’s table, to snatch up in those brief moments of leisure that could not be very profitably 
turned to account by recourse to any connected work in any department of literature. — Troy Budget. 

No family ought to be without it, for it is at once cheap, valuable, and very interesting; containing 
matter compiled from all kinds of books, from all quarters of the globe, from all ages of the world, and 
in relation to every corporeal matter at all worthy of being remarked or remembered. No work has 
been issued from the press for a number of years for which there was such a manifest want, and we 
are certain it only needs to be known to meet with an immense sale. — New Jersey Union. 

A well-pointed anecdote is often useful to illustrate an argument, and a memory well stored with per¬ 
sonal incidents enables the possessor to entertain lively and agreeable conversation.— N. Y. Com. 

A rich treasury of thought, and wit, and learning, illustrating the characteristics and peculiarities or- 
many of the most distinguished names in the history of literature and the arts. — Phil. Chris. Ohs. 

The range of topics is very wide, relating to nature, religion, science, and art; furnishing apposite 
illustrations for the preacher, the orator, the Sabbath school teacher, and the instructors of our com¬ 
mon schools, academies, and colleges. It must prove a valuable work for the fireside, as well as for 
the library, as it is calculated to please and edify all classes. — Zanesville Ch. Begister. 

This is one of the most entertaining works for desultory reading we have seen, and will no doubt 
have a very extensive circulation. As a most entertaining table book, we hardly know of any thing 
at once so instructive and amusing. — N. Y. Ch. Intelligencer. Q 



CII AMBERS’S WO ItKS 


CHAMBERS’S CYCLOPEDIA OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. A 

Selection of the choicest productions of English Authors, from the earliest to the present 
time. Connected by a Critical and Biographical History. Forming two large imperial 
octavo volumes ot 1400 pages, double column letter-press ; with upwards of 300 elegant 
Illustrations. Edited by Robert Chambers, embossed cloth, 5,00. 

This work embraces about one thousand authors, chronologically arranged and classed as Poets, 
Historians, Dramatists, Philosophers, Metaphysicians, Divines, etc., with choice selections from their 
writings, connected by a Biographical, Historical, and Critical Narrative; thus presenting a complete 
view of English literature from the earliest to the present time. Let the reader open where he will, 
he cannot fail to find matter for profit and delight. The selections are gems — infinite riches in a 
little room; in the language of another, “A whole English Library fused down into one 

CHEAP BOOKi” 

From W. II. Prescott. Author of ^ Ferdinand and Isabella.” The plan of the work is 
very judicious. , It will put the reader in a proper point of view for surveying the whole ground 
over which he is travelling. . . . Such readers cannot fail to profit largely by the labors of the critic 
who has the talent and taste to separate what is really beautiful and worthy of their study from what 
is superfluous. 

I concur in the foregoing opinion of Mr. Prescott. — Edward Everett. 

A popular work, indispensable to the library of a student of English literature— Dr. Wayland. 
We hail with peculiar pleasure the appearance of this work. — North American Review. 

It has been fitly described as a whole English library fused down into one cheap book.” The Bos¬ 
ton edition combines neatness with cheapness, engraved portraits being given, over and above the il¬ 
lustrations of the English copy. — A. Y. Commercial Advertiser. 

Welcome more than welcome ’ It was our good fortune some months ago to obtain a glance at this 
work s and we have ever since looked with earnestness for its appearance in an American edition. — 
A. Y. Recorder. 

csr The American edition of this valuable work is enriched by the addition of fine steel and mezzo¬ 
tint engravings of the heads of Shakspeare, Addison, Byron ; a full length portrait of Dr. John¬ 
son, and a beautiful scenic representation of Oliver Goldsmith and Dr. Johnson. These im¬ 
portant and elegant additions, together with superior paper and binding, render the American far su¬ 
perior to the English edition. The circulation of this most valuable and popular work has been truly 
enormous, and its sale in this country still continues unabated. 

CHAMBERS’S MISCELLANY OF USEFUL AND ENTERTAIN¬ 
ING KNOWLEDGE. Edited by William Chambers. With Elegant Illustrative 
Engravings. Ten volumes, 16mo, cloth. 7,00. 

This work has been highly recommended by distinguished individuals, as admirably adapted to 
Family, Sabbath, and District School Libraries. 

It would be difficult to find any miscellany superior or even equal to it; it richly deserves the epi¬ 
thets “ useful and entertaining,” and I would recommend it very strongly as extremely well adapted 
to form parts of a library for the young, or of a social or circulating library in town or country. — 
George B. Emerson, Esq., Chairman Boston School Book Committee. 

I am gratified to have an opportunity to be instrumental in circulating “ Chambers’s Miscellany ” 
among the schools for which I am superintendent. —J. J. Ci.ute, Town. Sup. of Castleton, K. Y. 

I am fully satisfied that it is one of the best series in our common school libraries now in circula¬ 
tion. — S. T. Hance, Town Sup. of Macedon, Wayne Co., iV. Y. 

The trustees have examined the “ Miscellany,” and are well pleased with it. I have engaged the 
hooks to every district that has library money. — Miles Chaffee, Town Sup. of Concord. A. Y. 

I am not acquainted with any similar collection in the English language that can compare with it 
for purposes of instruction or amusement. I should rejoice to see that set of books in every house in 
our country. — Rev. John O. Choules D. D. 

The information contained in this work is surprisingly great; and for the fireside, and the young, 
particularly, it cannot fail to prove a most valuable and entertaining companion. — A. Y. Evangelist. 

It is an admirable compilation, distinguished by the good taste which has been shown in all the pub¬ 
lications of the Messrs. Chambers. It unites the useful and entertaining. —A. Y. Com. Adv. 

E 



CHAMBERS’S WORKS 


CHAMBERS’S HOME BOOK AND POCKET MISCELLANY Con- 

taining a Choice Selection of Interesting and Instructive Reading for the Old and the 
Young. Six vols. 16mo, cloth, 3,00. 

This work is considered fully equal, if not superior, to either of the Chambers’s other works in in¬ 
terest, and. like them, contains a vast fund of valuable information. Following somewhat the plan 
of the “ Miscellany, ’ it is admirably adapted to the school or the family library, furnishing ample va¬ 
riety for every class of readers, both old and young. 

We do not know how it is possible to publish so much good reading matter at such a low price. 
We speak a good word for the literary excellence of the stories in this work ; we hope our people will 
introduce it into all their families, in order to drive away the miserable flashy-trashy stuff so often 
found in the hands of our young people of both sexes. — Scientific American. 

Both an entertaining and instructive work, as it is certainly a very cheap one. — Puritan Recorder. 

It cannot but have an extensive circulation. — Albany Express. 

Excellent stories from one of the best sources in the world. Of all the series of cheap books, this 
promises to be the best. — Bangor Mercury. 

If any person wishes to read for amusement or profit, to kill time or improve it, get “ Chambers’s 
Home Book.” — Chicago Times , 

The Chambers are confessedly the best caterers for popular and useful reading in the world. — 
Willis's Home Journal. 

A very entertaining, instructive, and popular work. — A. Y. Commercial. 

The articles are of that attractive sort which suits us in moods of indolence, when we would linger 
half way between wakefulness and sleep. They require just thought and activity enough to keep our 
feet from the land of Nod, witfiout forcing us to run, walk, or even stand. — Eclectic , Portland. 

The reading contained in these books is of a miscellaneous character, calculated to have the very 
best effect upon the minds of young readers. While the contents are very far from being puerile, they 
are not too heavy, but most admirably calculated for the object intended. — Evening Gazette. 

Coming from the source they do, we need not say that the articles are of the highest literary excel¬ 
lence. We predict for the work a large sale and a host of admirers. — East Boston Ledger. 

It is just the thing to amuse a leisure hour, and at the same time combines instruction with amuse¬ 
ment. — Dover Inquirer. 

Messrs. Chambers, of Edinburgh, have become famous wherever the English language is spoken 
and read, for their interesting and instructive publications. We have never yet met with any thing 
which bore the sanction of their names, whose moral tendency was in the least degree questionable. 
They combine instruction with amusement , and throughout they breathe a spirit of the purest moral¬ 
ity.— Chicago Tribune. 

CHAMBERS’S REPOSITORY OF INSTRUCTIVE AND AMUSING 

PAPERS. With Illustrations. An entirely New Series, and containing Original Arti¬ 
cles. lGmo, cloth, per vol. 50 cents. 

The Messrs. Chambers have recently commenced the publication of this work, under the title of 
“Chambers’s Repository of Instructive and Amusing Tp.acts,” in the form of penny 
weekly sheets, similar in style, literary character, &c., to the “ Miscellany,” which has maintained an 
enormous circulation of more than eighty thousand copies in England , and has already reached nearly 
the same sale in this country. 

Arrangements have been made by the American publishers, by which they will issue the work 
simultaneously with the English edition, in two monthly, handsomely bound, 16mo. volumes, of 200 
pages each, to continue until the whole series is completed. Each volume complete in itself and will 
be sold in sets or single volumes. 

es- Commendatory Letters, Reviews, Notices, &e., of each of Chambers’s works, sufficient to make 
a good sized duodecimo volume, have been received by the publishers, but room here will only allow 
giving a specimen of the vast multitude at hand. They are all popular, and contain valuable instruc¬ 
tive and entertaining reading — such as should be found in every family, school, and college library. 

P 


1 



VALUABLE SCIENTIFIC WORKS. 


PRINCIPLES OF ZOOLOGY: touching the Structure, Development, 

Distribution, and Natural Arrangement of the Races of Animals, living and extinct. 
With numerous Illustrations. For the Use of Schools and Colleges. Part I., Compara¬ 
tive Physiology. By Louis Agassiz and Augustus A. Gould. Revised 
Edition. 12mo, cloth, 1,00. 

This work places us in possession of information half a century in advance of all our elementary 
works on this subject. . . No work of the same dimensions has ever appeared in the English lan¬ 
guage containing so much new and valuable information on the subject of which it treats. — Prof. 
James Hall. 

A work emanating from so high a source hardly requires commendation to give it currency. The 
volume is prepared for the student in zoological science; it is simple and elementary in its style, full 
in its illustrations, comprehensive in its range, yet well condensed, and brought into the narrow com¬ 
pass requisite for the purpose intended. — Silliman's Journal. 

The work may safely be recommended as the best book of the kind in our language. — Christian 
Examiner. 

It is not a mere book, but a work - a real work, in the form of a book. Zoology is an interesting 
science, and is here treated with a masterly hand. The history, anatomical structure, the nature and 
habits of numberless animals, are described in clear and plain language, and illustrated with innumer¬ 
able engravings. It is a work adapted to colleges and schools, and no young man should be without 
it. — Scientific American. 

PRINCIPLES OF ZOOLOGY, PART II. Systematic Zoology, in 

which the Principles of Classification are applied, and the principal Groups of Animals 
are briefly characterized. With numerous Illustrations. 12mo, in preparation. 

THE ELEMENTS OF GEOLOGY; adapted to Schools and Colleges, 

with numerous Illustrations. ByJ R. Loomis, late Professor of Chemistry and Geology 
in Waterville College. 12mo, cloth, 1,00. 

After a thorough examination of the work, we feel convinced that in all the requirements of a text 
book of natural science, it is surpassed by no work before tiie American public. In this opinion we 
believe the great body of experienced teachers will concur. The work will be found equally well 
adapted to the wants of those who have given little or no attention to the science in early life, and are 
desirous to become acquainted with its terms and principles, with the least consumption of time and 
labor. We hope that every teacher among our readers will examine the work and put the justness 
of our remarks to the test of his judgment and experience. — M. B. Anderson, Pres, of Rochester 
University. 

This is just such a work as is needed for our schools. It contains a systematic statement of the 
principles of Geology, without entering into the minuteness of detail, which, though interesting to the 
mature student, confuses the learner. It very wisely, also, avoids those controverted points which 
mingle geology with questions of biblical criticism. We see no reason why it should not take its 
place as a text book in all the schools in the land. — N. Y. Observer. 

This volume merits the attention of teachers, who, if we mistake not, will find it better adapted to 
their purpose than any other similar work of which we have knowledge. It embodies a statement 
of the principles of Geology sufficiently full for the ordinary purposes of instruction, with the leading 
facts from which they arc deduced. It embraces the latest results of the science, and indicates the 
debatable points of theoretical geology. The plan of the work is simple and clear, and the style in 
which it is written is both compact and lucid. We have special pleasure fti welcoming its appearance. 
— Watchman and Reflector. 

This volume seems to be just the book now required on geology. It will acquire rapidly a circula¬ 
tion, and will do much to popularize and universally diffuse a knowledge of geological truths. — Al¬ 
bany Journal. 

It gives a clear and scientific, yet simple, analysis of the main features of the science. It seems, in 
language and illustration, admirably adapted for use as a text book iu common schools and academics i 
while it is vastly better than any thing which was used in college in our time. Iu all these capacities 
we particularly and cordially recommend it. — Congregationalist, Boston. D 



VALUABLE SCHOOL BOOKS 


THE ELEMENTS OF MORAL SCIENCE. By Francis Wayland, 

D. D., President of Brown University, and Professor of Moral Philosophy. Fiftieth 

Thousand. 12mo, cloth. Price 1,25. 

*** This work has been highly commended by Reviewers, Teachers, and others, and has 
been adopted as a Class Book in most of the collegiate, theological, and academical institu. 
tions of the country. 

I have examined it with great satisfaction and interest. The work was greatly needed, and is well 
executed. Dr. Wayland deserves the grateful acknowledgments and liberal patronage of the public. 
I need say nothing further to express my high estimate of the work, than that we shall immediately 
adopt it for a text book in our university. — Rev. Wilbur Fisk, late Pres, of Wesleyan University. 

The work has been read by me attentively and thoroughly, and I think very highly of it The au¬ 
thor himself is one of the most estimable of men, and I do not know of any ethical treatise in which 
our duties to God and to our fellow-men are laid down with more precision, simplicity, clearness, en¬ 
ergy, and truth. — Hon. James Kent, late Chancellor of New York. 

It is a radical mistake, in the education of youth, to permit any book to be used by students as a 
text book, which contains erroneous doctrines, especially when these are fundamental, and tend to 
vitiate the whole system of morals. We have been greatly pleased with the method which President 
Wayland has adopted; he goes back to the simplest and most fundamental principles; and,in the 
statement of his views, he unites perspicuity with conciseness and precision. In all the author’s lead¬ 
ing fundamental principles we entirely concur. — Biblical Repository. 

This is a new work on morals, for academic use, and we welcome it with much satisfaction. It is 
the result of several years’ reflection and experience in teaching, on the part of its justly distinguished 
author; and if it is not perfectly what we could wish, yet, in the most important respects, it supplies 
a want which has been extensively felt. It is, we think, substantially sound in its fundamental prin¬ 
ciples; and, being comprehensive and elementary in its plan, and adapted to the purposes of instruc¬ 
tion, it will be gladly adopted by those who have for a long time been dissatisfied with the existing 
works of Paley. — Literary and Theological Review. 


MORAL SCIENCE, ABRIDGED, by the Author, and adapted to the 

Use of Schools and Academies. Thirty-fifth Thousand. I 81110 , half cloth. Price 50 cts. 

The more effectually to meet the desire expressed for a cheap edition for schools, one 
is now issued at the reduced price of 25 cents per copy ! and it is hoped thereby to extend the 
benefit of moral instruction to all the youth of our land. Teachers, and all others engaged 
in the training of youth, are invited to examine this work. 

Dr. Wayland has published an abridgment of his work, for the use of schools. Of this step we can 
hardly speak too highly. It is more than time that the study of moral philosophy should be intro¬ 
duced into all our institutions of education. We are happy to see the way so auspiciously opened 
for such an introduction. It has been not merely abridged, but also rewritten. We cannot but regard 
the labor as well bestowed. — North American Review. 

We speak that we do know when we express our high estimate of Dr. Wayland’s ability in teach¬ 
ing moral philosophy, whether orally or by the book. Having listened to his instructions in this de¬ 
partment, we can attest how lofty are the principles, how exact and severe the argumentation, how 
appropriate and strong the illustrations, which characterize his system. — Watchman and Reflector. 

The work of which this volume is an abridgment, is well known as one of the best and most com¬ 
plete works on moral philosophy extant. The author is well known as one of the most profound 
scholars of the age. That the study of moral science, a science which teaches goodness, should be a 
branch of education, not only in our colleges, but in our schools and academies, we believe will not 
be denied. The abridgment of this work seems to us admirably calculated for the purpose, and we 
hope it will be extensively applied to the purposes for which it is intended. — Mercantile Journal. 

We hail the abridgment as admirably adapted to supply the deficiency which has long been felt in 
common school education — the study of moral obligation. Let the child early be taught the rela¬ 
tions it sustains to man and to its Maker, and who can foretell how many a sad and disastrous over¬ 
throw of character will be prevented, and how elevated and pure will be the sense of Integrity and 
Virtue ? — Evening Gazette. S. 



VALUABLE SCHOOL BOOKS 


ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. By Francis Wayland, 

D. D., President of Brown University. Twenty-sixth thousand. 12mo, cloth, 1,25. 

C3~ This important work of Dr. Wayland s is fast taking the place of every other text book on the 
subject of Political Economy in our colleges and higher schools in all parts of the country. 

The author says, “ his object has been to write a book which every one who chooses may under¬ 
stand. lie lias, therefore, labored to express the general principles in the plainest manner possible, 
and to illustrate them by cases with which every person is familiar. It has been to the author a 
source of regret, that the course of discussion in the following pages has, una\oidably, led him over 
ground which has frequently been the arena of political controversy. In all such cases, he has endeav¬ 
ored to state what seemed to him to be truth, without fear, favor or affection. He is conscious to him¬ 
self of no bias towards any party whatever, and he thinks that he who will read the whole work will 
be convinced that he has been influenced by none.” — Extract from the Preface. 

It embraces the soundest system of republican political economy of any treatise extant. — Advocate. 

We can say, with safety, that the topics are well selected and arranged ; that the author’s name is a 
guarantee for more than usual excellence. Wc wish it an extensive circulation.— A. Y. Observer. 


POLITICAL ECONOMY, ABRIDGED, by the Author, and adapted 

to the use of Schools and Academies. Thirteenth thousand. I8mo, half morocco. 

Price 50 cents. 

*** The success which has attended the abridgment of “ The Elements of Moral Sci¬ 
ence ” has induced the author to prepare an abridgment of this work. In this case, as in 
the other, the work has been entirely rewritten , and an attempt has been made to adapt it to 
the attainments of youth. 

The original work of the author, on Political Economy, has already been noticed on our pages; and 
the present abridgment stands in no need of a recommendation from us. We may be permitted how¬ 
ever, to say, that both the rising and the risen generations are deeply indebted to Dr. Wayland for the 
skill and power he has put forth to bring a highly important subject distinctly before them, within 
such narrow limits. Though “ abridged for the use of academies,” it deserves to be introduced into 
every private family, and to be studied by every man who has an interest in the wealth and prosper¬ 
ity of his country. It is a subject little understood, even practically, by thousands, and still less un¬ 
derstood theoretically. It is to be hoped this will form a class book, and be faithfully studied in our 
academics, and that it will find its way into every family library ; not there to be shut jup unread, but 
to afford rich material for thought and discussion in the family circle. It is fitted to enlarge the mind, 
to purify the judgment, to correct erroneous popular impressions, and assist every man informing 
opinions of public measures, which will abide the test of time and experience. — Puritan Recorder. 

An abridgment of this clear, common-sense work, designed for the use of academies, is just pub¬ 
lished. We rejoice to see such treatises spreading among*the people; and we urge all, who would be 
intelligent freemen, to read them. — N. Y. Transcript. 

PALEY’S NATURAL THEOLOGY. Illustrated by forty Plates, and 

Selections from the notes of Dr. Paxton, with additional Notes, original and selected, for 

this edition; with a vocabulary of Scientific Terms. Edited by John Ware, M. D. 

New edition, with new and elegant Illustrations. 12mo, sheep, 1,25. 

csr This deservedly popular work has become almost universally introduced into all schools, acad¬ 
emies, and colleges, where the subject is studied, throughout the country. 

The work before us is one which deserves rather to be studied than merely read. Indeed, w'thout 
diligent attention and study, neither the excellences of it can be fully discovered, nor its advantages 
realized. It is, therefore, gratifying to find it introduced, as a text book, into the colleges and literary 
institutions of our country. The edition before us is superior to any we have seen, and, we believe, 
superior to any that has yet been published. — Spirit of the Pilgrims. 

Perhaps no one of our author’s works gives greater satisfaction to all classes of readers, the young 
and the old, the ignorant and the enlightened. Indeed, we recollect no book in which the arguments 
for the existence and attributes of the Supreme Being, to be drawn from his works, are exhibited in a 
manner more attractive and more convincing. — Christian Examiner. M 





WORKS JUST ISSUED 


VISITS TO EUROPEAN CELEBRITIES. By William B. Spkague, D D. 

12mo. Cloth. $1.00. Second Edition. 

The first edition of this work was exhausted within a short time after its publica¬ 
tion. It consists of a series of Personal Sketches, drawn from life , of many of the 
most distinguished men and women of Europe, with whom the author became 
acquainted in the course of several European tours: Edward Irving, Rowland Hill, 
Wilberforce, Jay, Robert Hall, John Foster, Hannah More, Guizot, Louis Philippe, 
Sisrnondi,Tholuck, Gesenius,Neander, Humboldt, Encke, Rogers, Campbell, Joanna 
Baillie. John Pye Smith, Amelia Opie, Dr. Pusey, Mrs. Sherwood, Maria Edgeworth, 
John Galt, Dr Wardlaw, Dr. Chalmers, Sir David Brewster, Lord Jeffrey, Professor 
Wilson, (Kit North,) Southey, and others, are here portrayed as the author saw them 
in their own homes, and under the most advantageous circumstances. Accompany¬ 
ing the Sketches are the Autographs of each of the personages described. This 
unique feature of the work adds in no small degree to its attractions. Eor the social 
circle, for the traveller by railroad and steamboat, for all who desire to be refreshed 
and not weared by reading, the book will prove to be a most agreeable companion. 
The public press of all shades of opinion, North and South, have given it a most flat¬ 
tering reception. 

THE STORY OF THE CAMPAIGN. A Complete Narrative of the War in 

Southern Russia. Written in a Tent in the Crimea. By Major E. Bruce 

Hamley, Author of “ Lady Lee’s Widowhood.” 12mo. Thick. Printed 

Paper Covers. 37^ Cents. 

Contents. —The Rendezvous —The Movement to the Crimea — First Operations in 
the Crimea— Battle of the Alma — The Battle-field — The Ivatcha and the Balbek — 
The Flank March — Occupation of Balaklava — The Position before Sebastopol — 
Commencement of the Siege — Attack on Balaklava — First Action of Inkermann — 
Battle of Inkermann—Winter on the Plains — Circumspective — The Hospitals on 
the Bosphorus — Exculpatory — Progress of the Siege — The Burial Truce — View of 
the Works. 

This was first published in Blackivood' , s Magazine , in which form it has attracted 
general attention. It is the only connected and continuous narrative of the War in 
Europe that has yet appeared. The author is an officer of rank in the British army, 
and has borne an active part in the campaign; he has also won a brilliant reputation 
as the author of the fascinating story of “ Lady Lee’s Widowhood.” By his profes¬ 
sion of arms, by his actual participation in the conflict, and by his literary abilities, 
lie is qualified in a rare degree, for the task he has undertaken. The expectations 
thus raised will not be disappointed. To those who have been dependent on the 
Drief, fragmentary, interrupted, and irresponsible newspaper notices of the war, this 
book will furnish a full, complete, graphic, and perfectly reliable account from the 
beginning. Should the author’s life be spared, his history of future operations will 
follow, and will be issued by the publishers uniform with the present volume. 

ROGET'S THESAURUS OF ENGLISH WORDS. A New and Improved 

Edition. 12mo. Cloth. $1.50. 

This edition is based on the last London edition (just issued.) The first 
American edition having been prepared by Dr. Sears, for strictly educational pur 
poses, those words and phrases, properly termed “ vulgar,” incorporated into tha> 
original work, were omitted. Regret having been expressed by critics and scholars, 
whose opinions are entitled to respect, at this omission, in the present new 
edition the expurgated portions have been restored, but by such an arrangement of 
matter as not to interfere with the educational purpose of the American editor 
Besides this, there will be important additions of words and phrases net in the Eng 
lish edition, making this, therefore, in all respects, more full and perfect than the 
author’s edition. (ti) 



VALUABLE WORKS LOR THE YOUNG 


1OUNG AMERICANS ABROAD ; or, Vacation in Europe : the Results 

of a four through Great Britain, France, Holland, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland. 

By John Overton Choules, D. D., and his Pupils. With Elegant Illustrations. 
I6mo, cloth, 75 cts. 

This is a highly entertaining work, embracing more real information, such as every one wishes to 
know about Europe, than any other book of travels ever published. 

Three intelligent lads, who knew how to use their eyes, were so fortunate as to accompany their tutor 
on a short European tour ; and, from a carefully-kept journal, they wrote out, from time to time, in a 
series of letters to a favorite companion in study, at home, their impressions of the most remarkable 
places cn route. The pencillings are genuine and unaffected, and in all respects form an interesting 
and instructive record of travel. For readers of their own age, from twelve to sixteen years, these 
fresh, intelligent reminiscences of other lands have unusual attraction, and we cordially commend the 
work to their attention. — Sartain's Magazine. 

Admirably calculated to gratify and interest all young readers. — Transcript. 

One of the most attractive, instructive, and delightful books of the age. — Southern Lit. Gazette. 

Boys, here is a book that will suit you exactly. It is a series of letters from certain boys travelling 
in Europe tc their classmates in this country. You will be muen more interested in it than you 
would be in reading the travels of men over the same country. It will improve your knowledge to 
read this book, and amuse you during long winter nights. — Methodist Trot. 

We have been struck with the unaffected good taste, and the accuracy of the details, of this little 
book j indeed, it is worth much more than many a larger and more pretentious volume, for giving a 
daguerreotype of things abroad. — Congregationalist. 

A beautiful book for young people, unlike any thing of the kind we have ever seen. — Phil. Ch. Ob. 

One of the most interesting books that can be put into the hands of the young. — Olive Branch. 

One of the best books of foreign travel for youth to be found in the whole range of American litera¬ 
ture. — Buffalo Morning Express. 


THE ISLAND HOME; or, the Young Castaways. By Christopher 

Romaunt, Esq With Elegant Illustrations. lGmo, cloth, 75 cts 

The best and prettiest book for boys that we have lately seen. — Boston Post. 

A stirring and unique work. It will interest the juvenile men vastly. — Olive Branch. 

A delightful fiction, purporting to narrate the adventures of six boys who put to sea in an open boat, 
and were drifted to » desert island, where they lived in the manner of Robinson Crusoe. — N. Y. Com. 

The book is one of great interest, and one which will be a treat to any boy who may succeed in per¬ 
suading his father to pufchas< it for him. — Home Circle. 

Every young mind will pore ever its pages with almost enchanted interest.— Transcript 

A modern Robinson Crusoe story, without the dreary solitude of that famous hero. It is calculated 
to amuse and instruct the young reader in no ordinary degree. — Southern Lit. Gazette. 

A story that bids fair to rival the far-famed Robinson Crusoe in tne estimation of youthdom. We 
become as much interested in the Max, Johnny, Arthur, and the rest of the goodly company, as in the 
Swiss Family Robinson. — Sartain's Magazine. 


THE AMERICAN STATESMAN; or, Illustrations of the Life anti 
Character cf Daniei Webster, fer the Entertainment and Instruction of American 
Youth. By t'k Rev. Joseph Banvard, author of “ Plymouth and the Pilgrims,” 
“Novelties of the ITevv World,” “ Romance of American History,” etc. With elegant 
Illustrations 16mo, cloth, 75 cts. 

OS'- A work oi great interest, presenting a sketch of the most striking and important events which 
occurred in the history of the distinguished statesman, Daniel Webster, avoiding entirely all points of 
a political character; holding up to view, for the admiration and emulation of American youth, only 
his commendable traits of character. It is just such a work as every American patriot would wish 
his children to read and reflect upon. W 





PLEASANT PAGES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE, 


OR, ROOK OF HOME EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT. 

By S. Prout Newcombe. With numerous Illustrations. 16mo, 75 cts. 


osr This work is designed for the pleasure and profit of young people; and, as the title indicates, 
intended as an aid to Home Education. The great variety of subjects presented, consisting of Moral 
Lessons, Natural History, History, Travels, Physical Geography, Object Lessons, Drawing and Per¬ 
spective, Music, Poetry, etc., and withal, so skilfully treated as to make truth simple and attractive, 
renders it an admirable family book for winter evenings and summer days. 

A very excellent book for children. History, philosophy, science, stories, and descriptions of games 
are all mingled together, and he who does not like the compound must be hard to please. — Post. 

Pleasant pages, containing information on a great variety of subjects. Ten minutes a day on this 
attractive volume would soon make the boy quite a philosopher. We doubt whether most boys could 
be confined to the ten minutes. Curiosity would read on by the hour. Such books have a charming 
influence in the family. Here we have science and art made plain and captivating. The lessons in 
drawing and perspective alone are worth the price of the volume. And then a thousand questions 
which the intelligent young mind raises are here most pleasantly and plainly answered. — Parlor Mag. 

This is indeed a home book oi endless amusement. — Boston Atlas. 


This is an admirable book of home education. We commend it to every family. — Albany Spec. 
A work admirably adapted to me instruction and amusement of the young. — Albany Register. 


A pleasant book, full of all sorts of information upon all sorts of subjects. — Providence Journal. 


One of the most delightful works for young coplc we have ever met with. Few persons, young or 
old, could examine its pages without gaining a better knowledge of a useful kind, or without being in¬ 
terested by the pleasant and attractive manner which it i. written. It is one of the most successful 
combinations of the pleasant witn the useful found. — Daily Advertiser. 

This is a book of not only “ pleasant pages,” ji. of singularly instructive pages for young people. 
Even people not so very young might be >a profited by its perusal. — South Boston Gazette. 


It presents much solid information, and before the young new fields of observation. The 

youngsters will clap their ham’s with joy. — American. 


There is a great deal of valuable information communicated in a very simple and easy way. While 
it is full of useful instruction children it is also suggestive to those who are called to conduct then 
education. — Puritan Recoraet- 


We like this book • it is well fitted for its place in the family library, and the fireside companion of 
the young. Children like facts ./hen these are se forth in a pleasant way, the interest is greater than 
fiction ever awakens, unless the fiction ir. made t< appear like truth.— Godey's Ladies' Book. 


THE GUIDING STAR; or, The Bible God’s Message. By Louisa 
Payson IIopkins. With Frontispiece. 16ino, cloth, 50 cts. 

Although written more especially for rouns persons, its argumentation is so cogent that it may bo 
read with profit by adult sceptics. — N. Y. Commercial. 

This is an excellent little work to put into th«. Hand 3 of youth. It is written in conversational style, 
and opens up most beautifully, and with great simplicity, the great leading evidences that the Bible 
contains God’s message to mao. Those seeking after truth will find it worthy of frequent perusal, and 
those grounded in the truth, yet wanting in peculiar arguments with which to meet the cavils of infi¬ 
dels, will find it a champion of which they need not be ashamed.— Dr. Sprague, in Albany Spec. 

This is a happy presentation • < the argument in behalt of Christianity, in tlie form of a dialogue 
between a mother and her children. We cordially commend the work to parents, children, and Sab¬ 
bath schools. — CongregationoiiP. 

This volume should be in th hand; ot every youthful reader, and we doubt not that adult persons 
would find much in it .hat is net only interesting, but instructive. — Phil. Ch. Chronicle. 

The popular author of this book has conferred a favor on the public, for which she deserves some¬ 
thing more than thanks.— Ch. Secretary. 

One of the most valuable books for youth that we have seen. It required no ordinary capacity, re¬ 
search, and labor, to prepare it in its present shape.— Cong. Journal and Messenger. 

This is a book of more than common excellence. While reading it, how often have we wished that 
*11 the youth of our land might become familiar with its contents. — Ch. Mirror. X 


i\ Ai iOiA AL 


Oij iV i. L 

BY KEY. 


OF AMERICAN lliSi'Okiiw. 

JOSEPH BANVARD. 


PLYMOUTH ANI) THE PILGRIMS; or, Incidents of Adventures in 

the History of the First Settlers. With Illustrations. IGmo, cloth, 60 cts. 

The book, when once taken up, will not be laid down without regret until it is finished. — Courier. 

An exceedingly interesting volume. The incidents are well chosen, and are described in that di¬ 
rect, simple, and sprightly manner, for which Air. Banvard is so justly esteemed, and which eminently 
qualifies him to be a writer for the young. — Am. Traveller. 

It is written in a terse and vigorous style, and is well adapted for popular reading, and particularly 
to entertain and instruct tire youthful mind. — Mercantile Journal. 

Every New Englander, no matter where he resides, should own this book. — Scientific American. ( 

This is a beautifully executed and extremely interesting volume. It i„ written in a plain, but vig¬ 
orous style, particularly adapted to voung readers, though it may be read with interest by the older 
ones. — Ch. Freeman. 

Highly attractive in style and instructive in matter, and well calculated to engage the attention of 
young persons. — N. Y. Com. Adv. 

NOVELTIES OF THE NEW WORLD ; an Account of the Adventures 

and Discoveries of the First Explorers of North America. Being the second volume of 
Banvard’s Series of Aaierican Histories. With numerous Illustrations. 60c. 

If Air. Banvard completes the series as he has begun, he will supply an important desideratum for 
the young — a series of books which will serve as valuable introductions and enticements to more ex¬ 
tended historical reading. — Am. Travller. 

We have seen the boys bend over these pages, unwilling to leave them, either for play or sleep; and 
when finished, inquiring anxiously when the next would come.— Watchman and Reflector. 

It has all the interest of a romance. — Portland Transcript. 

AVritten in a felicitous style, which is neither too childish for adults, nor yet too difficult of compre¬ 
hension for children. They will delight as well as instruct. — Mercantile Journal. 

Some of the most interesting scenes and events in the New World are here brought together and in¬ 
vested with a charm that is irresistible by old as well as young. — Ch. Intelligencer. 

The book is beautifully printed; the subject is handled in a masterly manner.— Olive Branch. 

ROMANCE OF AMERICAN HISTORY; or, an Account of the Early 

Settlement of North Carolina and Virginia, embracing a Narrative of the tragic Incidents 
connected with the Spanish Settlement at St. Augustine, the French Colonies at Ro¬ 
anoke, and the English Plantation at Jamestown ; the Captivity of Captain John Smith, 
and the interesting Adventures of the youthful Pocahontas. Being the third volume of 
Banvard’s Series of American Histories. With numerous Illustrations. 60c. 

It has all the interest of romance, and the additional interest of veritable history. — Puritan Rec. 

It is a most pleasing and instructive book. — Home Journal. 

As interesting as a novel, and a thousand times more profitable reading. — Lit. Messenger. 

Every library should be furnished with this National Series of American Histories. — N. E. Farmer , 

Admirably fitted for fireside, family reading, and calculated to interest young persons. — Traveller. 

This is the third volume of Air. Banvard’s attractive series of books founded on the early history of 
our country; and it will make a most valuable addition to all family libraries. — Arthur's Gazette. 

No more interesting and instructive reading can be put into the hands of the young. Port. Trans. 

qsj- Other volumes of this popular series are in course of preparation. The series will embrace the 
most interesting and important events which have occurred in the United States since the settlement 
of the country. They will be adapted to the popular mind, and especially to the youth of our coun¬ 
try, and will contain numerous fine engravings. There will be twelve or more 16mo. volumes, of 
about 300 pages. Each volume to be complete in itself; and yet, when all are published, they will to¬ 
gether form a regular Series of American Histories. Y . 



WORKS JUST PUBLISHED 


THE BETTER LAND ; or, The Believer’s Journey and Future Home. Bj 
Rev. A. C. Thompson. 12mo, cloth. 85 cents. 

Contents. — The Pilgrimage — Clusters of Eschol —Waymarks — Glimpses of the Land — 
The Passage — The Recognition of Friends — The Heavenly Banquet — Children in Heaven — 
Society of Angels — Society of the Saviour — Heavenly Honor and Riches — No Tears in Heaven 
-Holiness of Heaven—Activity in Heaven — Resurrection Body— Perpetuity of Bliss in Heaven. 

A most charming and instructive book for all now Journeying to the “Better Land.” 

THE SCHOOL OF CHRIST ; or, Christianity viewed in its Leading As¬ 
pects. By the Rev. A. L. R. Foote, author of “ Incidents in the Life of cur 
Saviour,” etc. 16mo, cloth. 

MEMOIRS OF A GRANDMOTHER. By a Lady of Massachusetts. 16mo, 
cloth. 50 cents. 

“ My path lies in a valley which I have sought to adorn with flowers. Shadows from the hills 
cover it, but I make my own sunshine.” 

The little volume is gracefully and beautifully written. — Journal. 

Not unworthy the genius of a Dickens. — Transcript. 

HOURS WITH EUROPEAN CELEBRITIES. By the Rev. William B. 
Sprague, D. D. l‘2mo, cloth. $1.00. Second Edition. 

The author of this work visited Europe in 1828 and in 1836, under circumstances which 
afforded him an opportunity of making the acquaintance, by personal interviews, of a large 
number of the most distinguished men and women of that continent; and in his preface he 
says, “ It was my uniform custom, after every such interview, to take copious memoranda of 
the conversation, including an account of the individual’s appearance and manners ; in short, 
defining, as well as I could, the whole impression which his physical, intellectual and moral 
man had made upon me.” From the memoranda thus made, the material for the present 
instructive and exceedingly interesting volume is derived. Besides these “pen and ink” 
sketches, the work contains the novel attraction of a fac-simile of the signature of each of the 
persons introduced. 

THE AIM WE LL STORIES. 

A series of volumes illustrative of youthful character, and combining instruction with amuse 
ment. By Walter Aimwell, author of “ The Boy’s Own Guide,” “ The Boy’s Book of Morals 
and Manners,” &c. With numerous Illustrations. 

The first three volumes of the series, now ready, are — 

OSCAR ; or, The Boy who had iiis own Way. 16mo, cloth, gilt. 63 cents. 
CLINTON ; or, Boy-life in -rnE Country. 16mo, cloth, gilt. 63 cents. 
ELLA ; or. Turning over a New Leaf. 16mo, cloth, gilt. 63 cents. 

Each volume will be complete and independent of itself, but the series will be con¬ 
nected by a partial identity of character, localities, &c. 

HIE PLURALITY OF WORLDS. A New Edition. With a Supplementary 
Dialogue, in which the author’s reviewers are reviewed. l‘2ino, cloth. $1 

This masterly production, which has excited so much interest in this country and in Europe, 
will now have an increased attraction in the addition of the Supplement, in which the anther » 
reviewers are triumphantly reviewed. 

4£r* The Supplement will be furnished separate to those who have the original work. 

INFLUENCE- OF THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE UPON INTELLECTUAL 
EDUCATION. By William Whewell, D. D., of Trinity College, Cambridge 
Eng., and the alleged author of « Plurality of Worlds.” 16mo, cloth. 25 cts 

THE LANDING AT CAPE ANNE ; or, The Charter of the First Perma¬ 
nent Colony on the Territory of the Massachusetts Company. Now 
discovered and first published from the original manuscript, with an in 
quiry into its authority, and a History of the Colony, 1624-1628. Rogei 
Conant Governor. By John AVingate Thornton. 8vo, cloth. $1.50. 

This is a curious and exceedingly valuable historical document. 

A volume of great interest and importance. — Evening Traveller. (U) 






I M P O R T A N T W O IIK 


KITTO’S POPULAR CYCLOPAEDIA OF BIBLICAL LITERA. 

TURE. Condensed from the larger work. By the Author, J oiin Kitto, I). D., Author 
of “ Pictorial Bible, w “ History of Palestine,” “ Scripture Daily Readings,” &c. Assisted 
by James Taylor, D. D., of Glasgow. With over Jive hundred Illustrations. One vol¬ 
ume octavo, 812 pp., cloth, 3,00. 

The Popular Biblical Cyclopaedia of Literature is designed to furnish a Dictionary 
of the Bible, embodying the products of the best and most recent researches in biblical literature, 
in which the scholars of Europe and America have been engaged. The work, the result of immense 
labor and research, and enriched by the contributions of writers of distinguished eminence in the va¬ 
rious departments of sacred literature, has been, by universal consent, pronounced the best work of 
its class extant, and the one best suited to the advanced knowledge of the present day in all the studies 
connected with theological science. It is not only intended for ministers and theological students, 
but is also particularly adapted to parents, Sabbath school teachers, and the great body of the religious 
public. The illustrations, amounting to more than three hundred, are of the very highest order. 

A condensed view of the various branches of Biblical Science comprehended in the work. 

1. Biblical Criticism,— Embracing the History of the Bible Languages ; Canon of Scripture ; 
Literary History and Peculiarities of the Sacred Books ; Formation and History cf Scripture Texts. 

2. History,— Proper Names of Persons ; Biographical Sketches of prominent Characters; Detailed 
Accounts of important Events recorded in Scripture ; Chronology and Genealogy of Scripture. 

3. Geography, — Names of Places ; Description of Scenery ; Boundaries and Mutual Relations of 
the Countries mentioned in Scripture, so far as necessary to illustrate the Sacred Text. 

4. Archaeology, — Manners and Customs of the Jews and other nations mentioned in Scripture; 
their Sacred Institutions, Military Affairs, Political Arrangements, Literary and Scientific Pursuits. 

5. Physical Science,— Scripture Cosmogony and Astronomy, Zoology, Mineralogy, Botany. 
Meteorology. 

In addition to numerous flattering notices and reviews, personal letters from more than fifty of the 
most distinguished Ministers and Laymen of different religious denominations in the country have been 
received, highly commending this work as admirably adapted to ministers, Sabbath school teachers^ 
Meads of families, and all Bible students. 

The following extract of a letter is a fair specimen of individual letters received from each of the 
gentlemen whose names are given below: — 

« I have examined it with special and unalloyed satisfaction. It has the rare merit of being all that 
it professes to be, and very few, I am sure, who may consult it will deny that, in richness and fulness 
of detail, it surpasses their expectation. Many ministers will find it a,valuable auxiliary; but its 
chief excellence is, that it furnishes just the facilities which are needed by the thousands in families 
and Sabbath schools, who are engaged in the important business of biblical education. It is in itself a 
library of reliable information.” 

W. B. Sprague, D. D., Pastor of Second Presbyterian Church, Albany, N. Y. 

J. J. Carruthers, D. D., Pastor of Second Parish Congregational Church, Portland, Me. 

Joel Ilawcs, D. D., Pastor of First Congregational Church, Hartford, Ct. 

Daniel Sharp, D. D., late Pastor of Third Baptist Church, Boston. 

N. L. Frothingham, D. D.,latc Pastor of First Congregational Church, (Unitarian,) Boston. 

Ephraim Peabody, D. D., Pastor of Stone Chapel Congregational Church, (Unitarian,) Boston. 

A. L. Stone, Pastor of Park Street Congregational Church, Boston. 

John S. Stone, D. D., Rector of Christ Church, (Episcopal,) Brooklyn, N. Y. 

J. B. Watcrbury, D. D., Pastor of Bowdoin Street Church, (Congregational,) Boston. 

Baron Stow, D. D., Pastor of Rowe Street Baptist Church, Boston. 

Thomas H. Skinner, D. D., Pastor of Carmine Presbyterian Church, New York. 

Samuel W. Worcester, D. D., Pastor of the Tabernacle Church, (Congregational,) Salem. 

Horace Bushnell, D. D., Pastor of Third Congregational Church, Hartford, Ct.^ 

Right Reverend J. M. Wainwright, D. D., Trinity Church, (Episcopal.) New York. 

Gardner Spring, D. D., Pastor of the Brick Church Chapel Presbyterian Church, New York. 

W. T. Dwight, D. D., Pastor of Third Congregational Church, Portland, Me. 

E. N. Kirk, Pastor of Mount Vernon Congregational Church. Boston. 

Prof. George Bush, author of “ Notes on the Scriptures,” New York. _ 

Howard Malcom, D. D., author of “ Bible Dictionary,” and Pres, of Lewisburg I mversity. 

Henry J. Ripley, D. D., author of “ Notes on the Scriptures,” and Prof in Newton Theol. Ins. 

N. Porter, Prof in Yale College, New Haven, Ct. 

Jared Sparks, Edward Everett. Theodore Frelinghuysen, Robert C. Winthrop, John McLean, 

Simon Greenleaf, Thomas S. Williams, - and a large number of others of like character and 

standing of the above, whose names cannot here appear. It 




REG EN T P U BLI GAT IONS 


HISTORY OF CHURCH MUSIC IN AMERICA. Treating of its pecull 
arities at different, periods ; its legitimate use and its abuse ; with Criticisms 
Cursory Remarks, and Notices relating to Composers, Teachers, Schools, 
Ch-.irs, Societies, Conventions, Books, etc. By Nathaniel D. Gould, Author 
of “Social Harmony,” “ Church Harmony,” “Sacred Minstrel,” etc. 12mo, 
cloth. 75 cents. 

To all interested in church music (and who is not interested) this work will he found to 
contain a vast fund of information, with much that is novel, amusing and instructive. In giving 
a minute history of Church Music for the past eighty years, there Is interspersed throughout tht 
volume many interesting incidents, and numerous anecdotes concerning Ministers, Compo 
eers, Teachers, Performers and Performances, Societies, Choirs, &c. 

COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM COWPER; with a Life 
and Critical Notices of his Writings. On clear type, with new and elegant 
Illustrations on steel. 16mo, cloth, $1.00 ; fine cloth, gilt, $1.25. 

POETICAL WORKS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. With Life and elegant 
Illustrations on steel. lGmo, cloth, $1.00 ; fine cloth, gilt, $1.25. 

MILTON’S POETICAL WORKS. With Life and elegant Illustrations. 
16mo, cloth, $1.00 ; fine cloth, gilt, $1.25. In press. 

jg@=* The above poetical works, by standard authors, are all of uniform size and style, printed 
on fine paper, from clear, distinct type, with new and elegant illustrations, richly bound in full 
gilt, and plain ; which, with the exceedingly low jirice at which they are offered, render them 
the most desirable of any of the numerous editions of these authors’ works now in the market. 

United States Exploring Expedition, under command of Charles Wilkes, U. S. N. 

VOLUME XII. 

MOLLUSCA AND SHELLS. By Augustus A. Gould, M. D. One elegant 
quarto volume, cloth. $6.00. 

THE TWO RECORDS ; the Mosaic and the Geological. A Lecture delivered 
before the Young Men’s Christian Association, in Exeter Hall, London. 
By Hugh Miller. lCmo, cloth. 25 cents, 

Jggp No work by Hugh Miller needs commendation to insure purchasers. 

NOAH AND HIS TIMES ; embracing the consideration of various inquiries 
relative to the Ante-diluvian and earlier Post-diluvian Periods, with Discus¬ 
sions of several of the leading questions of the present time. By Rev. J. 
Munson Olmstead, A. M. 12mo, cloth. $1.25. 

JGGr 1 This is not only a popular, but a very valuable, work for all Bible students. 

A PARISIAN PASTOR’S GLANCE AT AMERICA. By T. H. Grand 
Pierre, D. D., Pastor of the Reformed Church, and Director of the Mission¬ 
ary Institution in Paris. lCmo, cloth. 50 cts. 

The author of this volume is one of the most eminent ministers now living of the Reformed 
Church of France. He is distinguished as a preacher and a writer ; as a man of large and lib¬ 
eral views, of earnest piety, of untiring industry, and of commanding influence. His state¬ 
ments are characterised by great correctness as well as great candor. — Puritan Recorder. 

JULIAN ; or, the End of an Era. By L. Bungener. With a Sketch of the 
Author’s Life, and an elegant Portrait. 2 vols., 12mo, cloth. In press 

VOLTAIRE AND HIS TIMES. By L. Bungener. 12mo, cloth. In presz 

IITPPOLYTTJS, and the Christian Church of the Third Century; with a copi 
ous analysis of the newly-discovered MSS., and a translation from the orig 
*nal Greek. By W. Elfe Taylor. lCmo, cloth. In press. 

( i> 



IM P 0 R T A NT NE W WORKS. 

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE : Social and Individual. By Peter Bayne, A M 
12mo. Cloth. $1.25. 

Contents. — Part I. Statement. I. The Individual Life. II. The Social Life. 
Part II. Exposition and Illustration. Book I. Christianity the Basis of 
Social Life. 1. First Principles. II. Howard; and the rise of Philanthropy. III. 
Wilberforce; and the development of Philanthropy. IV. Budgett; the Christian 
Freeman. V. The social problem of the age, and one or two hints towards its solution. 
Book II\ Christianity the Basis of Individual Character. I. Introductory: a few 
Words on Modern Doubt. II. John Foster. III. Thomas Arnold. IV. Thomas 
Chalmers. Part III. Outlook. I. The Positive Philosophy. II. Pantheistic 
Spiritualism. III. General Conclusion. 

Particular attention is invited to this work. In Scotland, its publication, during 
the last winter, produced a great sensation. Hugh Miller made it the subject of an 
elaborate review in his paper, the Edinburgh Witness , and gave his readers to under¬ 
stand that it was an extraordinary work. The “ News of the Churches ,” the monthly 
organ of the Scottish Free Church, was equally emphatic in its praise, pronouncing 
it “the religious book of the season.” Strikingly original in plan and brilliant in 
execution, it far surpasses the expectations raised by the somewhat familiar title. It 
is, in truth, a bold onslaught (and the lirst of the kind) upon the Pantheism of Carlyle, 
Fichte, etc., by an ardent admirer of Carlyle; and at the same time an exhibition of 
the Christian Life, in its inner principle, and as illustrated in the lives of Howard 
Wilberforce, Budgett, Foster, Chalmers, etc. The brilliancy and vigor of the author s 
6tyle are remarkable. 

PATRIARCHY; or, the Family, its Constitution and Probation. By John 
Harris, D. D., President of “ New College,” London, and author of “ The 
Great Teacher,” “ Mammon,” “ Pre-Adamite Earth,” “ Man Primeval,” etc. 
12mo. Cloth. $1.25. 

This is the third and last of a series, by the same author, entitled “ Contributions 
to Theological Science.” The plan of this series is highly original, and thus far has 
been most successfully executed. Of the first two in the series, “ Pre-Adamite Earth,” 
and “ Man Primeval,” we have already issued four and five editions, and the demand 
still continues. The immense sale of all Dr. Harris’s works attest their intrinsic 
popularity. The present work has long been-expected, but was delayed owing to the 
author’s illness, and the pressure of his duties as President of New College, St. John’s 
Wood. Wesliall issue it from advanced sheets (a large portion ofwhich have already 
been received) simultaneously with its publication in England. 

GOD REVEALED IN NATURE AND IN CHRIST: Including a Refutation 
of the Development Theory contained in the “ Vestiges of the Natural History 
of Creation.” By the Author of “ The Philosophy of the Plan of Sal¬ 
vation.” 12mo. Cloth. $1.25. 

The author of that remarkable book, “ The Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation,” 
has devoted several years of incessant labor to the preparation of this work. Without 
being specifically controversial, its aim is to overthrow several of the popular errors 
of the day, by establishing the antagonist truth upon an impregnable basis of reason 
and logic. In opposition to the doctrine of a mere subjective revelation, now so 
plausibly inculcated by certain eminent writers, it demonstrates the necessity of an 
external, objective revelation. Especially, it furnishes a new, and as it is conceived, 
a conclusive argument against the “ development theory ” so ingeniously maintained 
in the “ Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation.” As this author does not pub¬ 
lish except when he has something to say, there is good reason to anticipate that the 
work will be one of unusual interest and value. His former book has met with the 
most signal success in both hemispheres, having passed through numerous editions 
in England and Scotland, and been translated into four of the European languages 
besides. It is also about to be translated into the Hindoostanee toiusue. (mi 



A PILGRIMAGE TO EGYPT; 

EMBRACING A DIARY OF EXPLORATIONS ON THE NILE, 
WITH OBSERVATIONS, illustrative of the Manners, Customs, and 

Institutions of the People, and of the present condition of the Antiquities and Ruins. I3y 
J. V. C. Smith, M. D., Editor of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. With nu¬ 
merous elegant Engravings. Third edition. 1,25. 

There is a lifelike interest in the narratives and descriptions of Dr. Smith’s pen, which takes yow 
directly along with the traveller, so that when he closes a chapter you feel that you have reached 
an inn, where you will rest for a while; and then, with a refreshed mind, you will be ready to move 
on again, in a journey full of fresh and instructive incidents and explorations. — C 'h. Witness. 

Every page of the volume is entertaining and instructive, and even those who are well read in 
Egyptian manners, customs, and scenery, cannot fail to lind something new and novel upon those 
somewhat hackneyed topics. — Mercantile Journal, 

One of the most agreeable books of travel which have been published for a long time. — Daily Aclv. 

It is readable, attractive, and interesting, because familiar and companionable. You seem to be 
travelling with him, and seeing the things which he sees.— Bunker Hill Aurora. 

The author is a keen observer, and describes what he observes with a graphic pen. The volume 
abounds in vivid descriptions of the manners, customs, and institutions of the people visited, the 
present condition of the ancient ruins, accompanied by a large number of illustrations. — Courier. 

We see what Egypt was; we see what Egypt is; and with prophetic endowment we see what it is 
yet to be. It is a charming book, not written for antiquarians and the learned,but for the million, and 
by the million it will be read. — Congregationalist. 

The reader may be sure of entertainment in such a land, under the guidance of such an observer as 
Dr. Smith, and will be surprised, when he has accompanied him through the tour, at the vivid im¬ 
pression which he retains of persons,and places, and incidents. The illustrations are capitally drawn, 
and add greatly to the value of the book, which is a handsome volume in every respect, as are all 
the works which issue from the house of Gould and Lincoln. — Salem Gazette. 

This is really one of the most entertaining books upon Egypt that we have met with. It is an easy 
and simple narration of all sorts of strange matters and things, as they came under the eye of an at¬ 
tentive and intelligent observer. — Albany Argus. 

Mr. Smith is one of the sprightliest authors in America, and this work is worthy of his pen. He is 
particularly happy in presenting the comical and grotesque side of objects.— Commonwealth. 

The sketches of people and manners are marvellously lifelike, and if the book is not a little gossipy, 
it is not by any means wanting in substantial information and patient research. — Ch. Inquirer. 

One of the most complete and perfect books of the kind ever published, introducing entire new 
places and scenes, that have been overlooked by other writers. The style is admirable and attractive, 
and abundantly interesting to insure it a general circulation. — Diaclem. 

Reader, take this book and go with him; it is like making the voyage yourself. Dr. Smith writes in 
a very pleasing style. No one will fall to sleep over the book. "We admire the man's wit; it breaks 
out occasionally like flashes of lightning on a dark sky, and makes every thing look pleasantly. Of 
all the books we have read on Egypt, we prefer this. It goes ahead of Stephens’s. Reader, obtain a 
copy for yourself. — Trumpet. 

This volume is neither a re-hash of guide books, nor a condensed mensuration of heights and dis¬ 
tances from works on Egyptian antiquities. It contains the daily observations of a most intelligent 
traveller, whose descriptions bring to the reader’s eye the scenes he witnessed. \V e have read many 
books on Egypt, some of them full of science and learning, and some of wit and frolic, but none which 
furnished so clear an idea of Egijpt vs it is, — of its ruins as they now are, and of its people as they 
now live and move. The style, always dignified, is not unfrequently playful, and the reader is borne 
along from page to page, with the feeling that he is in good company. -- Watchman and Deflector. 

Its geological remarks upon the Nile and its valley, its information upon agriculture and the me¬ 
chanic arts, amusements, education, domestic life and economy, and especially upon the diseases of 
the country, are new and important. — Congregationalist. 

SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY; containing a descriptive account 

ol Quadrupeds, Birds, Fishes, Insects, Reptiles, Serpents, Plants, Trees, Minerals, Gems, 
and Precious Stones, mentioned in the Bible. By William Carpenter, London; 
with Improvements, by Rev. Gorham D. Abbott. Illustrated by numerous Engrav¬ 
ings- Also, Sketches of Palestine. I2mo, cloth, 1,00. T 


HUGH MILLER’S WORKS 


MY FIRST IMPRESSIONS 

OF ENGLAND AND ITS PEOPLE. 

By Hugh Miller, author of “ Old Red Sandstone,” “ Footprints of the 

Creator.” etc., with a fine likeness of the author. 12mo, cloth, 1,00. 

0 

Let not the careless reader imagine, from the title of this book, that it is a common book of travels, 
on the contrary, it is a very remarkable one, both in design, spirit, and execution. The facts recorded, 
and the views advanced in this book, are so tresh, vivid, and natural, that we cannot but commend it 
as a treasure, both of information and entertainment. It wdl greatly enhance the authof’s reputation 
in this country as it already has in England. — Willis's Home Journal. 

This is a noble book, worthy of the author of the Footprints of the Creator and the Old Red Sand¬ 
stone, because it is seasoned with the same power of vivid description, the same minuteness of obser¬ 
vation, and soundness of criticism, and the same genial piety. We have read it with deep interest, 
and with ardent admiration of the author’s temper and genius. It is almost impossible to lay the book 
down, even to attend to more pressing matters. It is, without compliment or hyperbole, a most de¬ 
lightful volume. — N. Y. Commercial. 

It abounds with graphic sketches of scenery and character, is full of genius, eloquence, and observa¬ 
tion, and is well calculated to arrest the attention of the thoughtful and inquiring. — Phil. Inquirer. 

This is a most amusing and instructive book, by a master hand. — Democratic Review. 

The author of this work proved himself, in the Footprints of the Creator, one of the most original 
thinkers and powerful writers of the age. In the volume before us he adds new laurels to his reputa¬ 
tion. Whoever wishes to understand the character of the present race of Englishmen, as contradistin¬ 
guished from past generations ; to comprehend the workings of political, social, and religious agitation 
in the minds, not of the nobility or gentfy, but of the people, will discover that, in this volume, he has 
found a treasure. — Peterson's Magazine. 

Ilis eyes were open to see, and his cars to hear, every thing; and, as the result of what he saw and 
heard in “ merrie ” England, he has made one of the most spirited and attractive volumes of travels 
and observations that we have met with these many days. — Traveller. 

It is with the feeling with which one grasps the hand of an old friend that we greet to our home and 
heart the author of the Old Red Sandstone and Footprints of the Creator. Hugh Miller is one of the 
most agreeable, entertaining, and instructive writers of the age ; and, having been so delighted with 
him before, we open the First Impressions, and enter upon its perusal with a keen intellectual appe¬ 
tite. We know of no work in England so full of adaptedness to the age as this. It open3 up clearly to 
view the condition of its various classes, sheds new light into its social, moral, and religious history, 
not forgetting its geological peculiarities, and draws conclusions of great value. — Albany Spectator. 

We commend the volume to our readers as one of more than ordinary value and interest, from tho 
pen of a writer who thinks for himself, and looks at mankind and at nature through his own spec¬ 
tacles. — Transcript. 

The author, one of the most remarkable men of the age, arranged for this journey into England, 
expecting to “lodge in humble cottages, and wear a humble dress, and see what was to be seen by 
humble men only,— society without its mask.” Such an observer might be expected to bring to view 
a thousand things unknown, or partially known before; and abundantly does he fulfil this expecta¬ 
tion. It is one of the most absorbing books of the time.— Portland Ch. Mirror. 


NEW WORK. 

MY SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS; 

OR THE STORY OF MY EDUCATION. 

By IIugii Miller author of “Footprints of the Creator,” “Old Red 
Sandstone,” “ First Impressions of England ” etc. 12ino, cloth 

This is a personal narrative of a deeply interesting and instructive character, concerning one of the 
most remarkable men of the age. No one who purchases this book will have occasion to regret it, our 
word for it' U 




THE CRUISE OF THE NORTH STAR 


A NARRATIVE OF THE EXCURSION MADE BY MR. VANDERBILT’S 
PARTY, IN THE STEAM YACHT, in her Voyage to England, Russia, 
Denmark, France, Spain, Italy, Malta, Turkey, Madeira, etc. By Rev. JonN 
Overton Choules, D. D. With elegant Illustrations, and fine Likenesses 
of Commodore Vanderbilt and Capt. Eldridge. 12mo, cloth, gilt backs and 
sides. $1.50. 

The cruise of the North Star was an event of almost national concern, and was watched with 
universal interest. This volume is as different from ordinary books of travel as the cruise of 
the North Star was different from an ordinary trip to Europe. We need not bespeak for it 
many readers. — Providence Journal. 

The American people ought to be proud of, and grateful to, Cornelius Vanderbilt. This man 
has done more than a dozen presidents to give America a respected name in Europe. At first 
a poor boy, he has shown by his history what faculties American institutions have to bring out 
individual enterprise. Ilaving, by his masterly enterprise, acquired a princely fortune, Mr. 
Vanderbilt, the past year, in a yacht of his own, built expressly for the purpose, took a family 
trip to the several European cities Such an idea never before occurred to mortal man. Every¬ 
where he went, his j T acht enterprise was the theme of general comment. Everywhere the 
enterprise bears a national character. In the person of Cornelius Vanderbilt, American enter¬ 
prise told the people of Europe what it could do. The desire to get this curious narrative was 
so great that the whole of the first edition went off in two days ! — Star of the West. 

Those who remember to have met with a very interesting work, published some two years 
ago, entitled “ Toung Americans Abroad,” will be glad to learn that here is another book of 
travels from the same source. Do you say your shelves are all full of books of travel?— we reply, 
with Leigh Hunt, — then put in another shelf, and place this one on it. — Methodist Protestant. 

The work is one of the most entertaining, and, in its way, vivid, portraitures of scenes in the 
Old World, that we have ever seen. — Boston Transcript. 

This is a fitting memorial of the most remarkable trip of its kind ever taken, and which ex¬ 
cited great interest both in this country and Europe. The book is in many respects as novel 
as the occasion which produced it was unique and memorable. Both the accomplished author 
and the publishers deserve the best thanks for so tasteful a record of a performance which has 
reflected so much credit abroad upon American enterprise. — Neiv York Courier & Enquirer. 

This work is interesting, not only as a memorial of the North Star, and her trip to Europe,— 
an enterprise which, of a private nature in its undertaking, was almost national in its anticipa¬ 
tions and in its proud results, — but also as a record of European travel, narrated in a lively 
manner, by a gentleman whose taste and attainments eminently qualify him for the task. — 
New York Times. 

Never before did a private individual make so magnificent an excursion as Mr. Vanderbilt. 
In a steam yacht of unsurpassed splendor, accompanied by a few select friends, whom he en¬ 
tertained, during the voyage, in the most luxurious manner, he crossed over to the Old World ; 
viewed the curiosities of parts of three continents ; steamed from port to port, and then re¬ 
turned, having spent four months in this most delightful manner. Dr. Clioules, who was one 
of his guests, has given to the world a charming account of this unique voyage, in a beautifully 
printed and illustrated volume. We commend it to our readers as a very entertaining, weH- 
written book. — Zion's Herald. 

The whole world has heard of Mr. Vanderbilt and his matchless yacht, — his pleasure excur¬ 
sion to Europe,— its princely cost, and safe and happy execution. * * * The book will be 
eagerly perused, as a record of one of the unique occurrences of the age ; is written with a kind 
of drawing-room, etiquette-like style, is mellow in sentiment, and is wholly destitute of that 
straining after the sublime, and stranding in the “ high-falutin,” that characterize the effusions 
of the tourist generally. — Chicago Advertiser. 

This exceedingly clever volume is the result and the record of one of the most stupendous 
and magnificent water excursions that ever was made. — Norfolk Co. Democrat. 

This beautiful volume describes, in a chaste and readable manner, the fortunes of the widely- 
known excursion of the princely New York merchant and his family and guests. From the 
eclat of the voyage itself, and the pleasant way of Dr. Choules’ account of it, we think the book 
is destined to have — what it deserves — a very large sale. — Congregationalist. (ft 


AMOS LAWHENCE 


DIARY AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THE LATE AMOS LAW¬ 
RENCE ; with a brief account of some Incidents in his Life. Edited by his son, 
William R. Lawrence, 31. D. With tine steel Portraits of Amos and Abbott 
Lawrence, an Engraving of their Birth-place, a Fac-simile page of 3Ir. Law¬ 
rence’s Hand-writing, and a copious Index. Octavo edition, cloth, §1.50. Royal 
duodecimo edition, §1.00. 

This work was first published in an elegant octavo volume, and sold at the unusu¬ 
ally low price of §1.50. At the solicitation of numerous benevolent individuals who 
were desirous of circulating the work—so remarkably adapted to do good, especially 
to young men —gratuitously, and of giving those ofmoderate means, of every class, an 
opportunity of possessing it, the royal duodecimo, or “ cheap edition was issued, 
varying from the other edition, only in a reduction in the size (allowing less margin), 
and the thickness of the paper. 

Within six months after the first publication of this work, twenty-two thousand 
copies had been sold. This extraordinary sale is to be accounted for by the character 
of the man and the merits of the book. It is the memoir of a Boston merchant, who 
became distinguished for his great wealth, but more distinguished for the manner in 
which he used it. It is the memoir of a man, who, commencing business with only 
§20, gave away in public and private charities, during his lifetime more, probably 
than any other person in America. It is substantially an autobiography , containing 
a full account ot Mr. Lawrence’s career as a merchant, of his various multiplied chari¬ 
ties, and of his domestic life. 

“We have by us another work, the ‘ Life of Amos Lawrence.’ We heard it once said in the pulpit, 
‘ There is no work of art like a noble life,’ and for that reason he who has achieved one, takes rank 
with the great artists and becomes the world’s property. We are proud of this book. We are 

WILLING TO LET IT GO FORTH TO OTHER LANDS AS A SPECIMEN OF WHAT AMERICA CAN 

produce. In the old world, reviewers have called Barnum the characteristic American man. We 
arc willing enough to admit that he is a characteristic American man ; he is one fruit of our soil, 
but Amos Lawrence is another. Let our country have credit for him also. The good effect 
WHICH THIS Life may have in determining the course of young men to honor and 
VIRTUE IS INCALCULABLE.”—Mrs. STOWE, IN N. Y. INDEPENDENT. 

“ We are glad to know that our large business houses are purchasing copies of this work for each 
of their numerous clerks. Its influence on young men cannot be otherwise than highly salutary. 
As a business man, Mr. Lawrence was a pattern for the young clerk.’’— Boston Traveller. 

“ We are thankful for the volume before us. It carries us back to the farm-house of 31 r. Law-- 
rence’s birth, and the village store of his first apprenticeship. It exhibits a charity noble and active, 
while the young merchant was still poor. And above all, it reveals to us a beautiful cluster of sister 
graces, a keen sense of honor, integrity which never knew the shadow of suspicion, candor in the 
estimate of character, filial piety, rigid fidelity in every domestic relation, and all these connected 
with and flowing from steadfast religious principle, profound sentiments of devotion, and a vivid 
realization of spiritual truth.”— North American Review. 

“ We are glad that American Biography has been enriched by such a contribution to its treasures. 
In all that composes the career of ‘the good man,’ and the practical Christian, we have read few 
memoirs more full of instruction, or richer in lessons of wisdom and virtue. We cordially unite in 
the opinion that the publication of this memoir was a duly owed to society.”— National Intel¬ 
ligencer. 

“ With the intention of placing it within the reach of a large number, the mere cost price is 
charged, and a more beautifully printed volume, or one calculated to do more good, has not been 
issuedfrom the press of late years.”— Evening Gazette. 

“ This book, besides being of a different class from most biographies, has another peculiar charm. 
It shows the inside life of the man. You have, as it were, a peep behind the curtain, and see Mr. 
Lawrence as he went in and out among business men, as hd appeared on ’change, as he received 
his friends, as he poured out, ‘with liberal hand and generous heart,’ his wealth for the benefit 
of others, as he received the greetings and salutations of children, and as he appeared in the bosom 
Of his family at his own hearth stone.”— Brunswick Telegraph. 

“It is printed on new type, the best paper, and is illustrated by four beautiful plates. How it can 
be sold for the price named is a marvel.”— Norfolk Co. Journal. 

“It was first privately printed, and a limited number of copies were distributed among the 
relatives and near friends of the deceased. This volume was read with the deepest interest by those 
who were so favored as to obtain a copy, and'it passed from friend to friend as rapidly as it could be 
read. Dr. Lawrence has yielded to the general wish, and made public the volume. It will now be 
widely circulated, will certainly prove a standard work, and be read over and over again. ”i—B os¬ 
ton Daily Advertiser. 



VALUABLE WORKS. 


KNOWLEDGE IS POWER : a View of the Productive Porce^ of 
Modern Society, and the Results of Labor, Capital, and Skill. By Charles 
Knight. American edition, with Additions, by David A. Wells, Editor of 
“ Annual of Scientific Discovery,” etc. With numerous Illustrations. 12mo, 
cloth. $1.25. 

This work is eminently entitled to be ranked in that class styled “ books for the people.” The au¬ 
thor is one of the most popular writers of the day, and has particularly distinguished himself by 
adapting his books to the masses. Sprung from the people lAmself, he knows their literary wants, 
and he knows also how to address them. His style is easy and racy, sufficiently polished for the 
most refined, while it is peculiarly fitted to captivate plain, unlettered, but thinking men. “ Knowl¬ 
edge is Power treats of those things which “ come home to the business and bosoms ” of every man, 
which affect the wealth and welfare of both nations and individuals. It remarkable for its fullness 
and variety ot information, and for the felicity and force with which the author applies his facts to 
his reasoning. It is as instructiv as many books on the same subject from learned men, and as 
entertaining as it is instructive. The facts and illustrations are drawn from almost every branch of 
skilful industry — iron-mongery glass manufacture, pottery cotton and woollen manufactures, hat 
making, pin and needle making, printing, etc. It is a work, in short, which the mechanic and arti¬ 
san of every description will ' ' sure to read with a relisii. To adapt it to this country, a portion 
of the industrial, historical an statistical matter, which was exclusively English and local, has been 
replaced, by the American editor with information of a like character drawn from American sources, 
For similar reasons, many of the original engravings have been replaced by others. 

MY SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS ; or, The Story of my 
Education. By Hugh Miller, author of “Old Red Sandstone,” “Footprints 
of the Creator,” “ My First Impressions of England,” etc. 12mo, cloth. $1.25. 

“ This autobiography is quite worthy of the renowned author. Ilis first attempts at literature, 
and his career until he stood forth an acknowledged power among the philosophers and ecclesias¬ 
tical leaders of his native land, are given without egotism, with a power and vivacity which are 
equally truthful and delightsome.” — Presbyterian. 

“ Hugh Miller is one of the most remarkable men of the age. Having risen from the humble walks 
of life, and from the employment of a stone-cutter, to the highest rank among scientific men, every¬ 
thing -elating to his history possesses an interest which belongs to that of few living men. There is 
much even in his school-boy days which points to the man as he now is. The book has all the ease 
and graphic power which is characteristic of his writings.”— New York Observer. 

“ This volume is a book for the ten thousand. It is embellished with an admirable likeness of 
Hugh Miller, the stone mason — his coat off and his sleeves rolled up — with the implements of labor 
in hand — his form erect, and his eye bright and piercing. The biography of such a man will interest 
every reader. It is a living thing — teaching a lesson of self-culture of immense value.” — Phila¬ 
delphia Christian Observer. 

“ It is a portion of autobiography exquisitely told. He is a living proof that a single man may 
contain within himself something more than all the hooks in the world, some unuttered word, if he 
will look within and read. This is one of the best books we have had of late, and must have a 
hearty welcome and a large circulation in America.” — London Corresp. N. Y. Tribune. 

“ It is a work of rare interest; at times having the facination of a romance, and again suggesting 
the profoundest views of education and of science. The ex-mason holds r graphic pen ; a quiet 
humor runs through his pages ; he tells a story well, and some of his pictures of home life might 
almost be classed with Wilson’s.” — New York Independent. 

“This autobiography is the book for poor boys, and others who are struggling with poverty and 
limited advantages ; and perhaps it is not too much to predict that in a few years it will become one 
of the poor man’s classics, filling a space on his scanty shelf next to the Autobiography of Frank¬ 
lin.”— New England Farmer. 

“ Lovers of the romantic should not neglect the book, as it contains a narrative of tender passion 
and happily reciprocated affection, which will be read with subdued emotion and unfailing interest.” 
— Boston Traveller. 

THE HALLIG ; or, The Sheepfold in the Waters. A Tale of 
Humble Life on the Coast of Schleswig. Translated from the German of Biernatz- 
ski, by Mrs. George P. Marsh. With a Biographical Sketch of the Author. 
12mo, cloth. $1.00 

The author of this work was the grand-son of an exiled Polish nobleman. His own portrait is 
understood to be drawn in one of the characters of the Tale, and indeed the whole work has a sub¬ 
stantial foundation in fact. In Germany it has passed through several editions, and is there regarded 
as the chef d’oeuvre of the author. As a revelation of an entire new phase of human society, it will 
strongly remind the reader of Miss Bremer’s tales. In originality and brilliancy of imagination, it 
is not inferior to those ; —its aim is far higher. The elegance of Mrs. Marsh’s translation will at once 
arrest the attention of every competent judge. 

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